.  33  Jr. 


R,_M.  Johnston.     Poet.     ALS,  ibmo, 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


OF 


Col.  Richard  Malcolm  Johnston 


SECOND   EDITION 


WASHINGTON 

THE  NEAI,E  COMPANY 
M  c  MI 


COPYRIGHT,    IgOO,   BY   THE   NEALE  COMPANY 


PS 


INTRODUCTION 

years  ago  my  friend  Henry  M.  Alden, 
at  whose  house  I  was  staying  for  the  night, 
said  that  I  ought    to  write   a  book   telling 
—    reminiscences  of  myself  and  others  whom  I 

jJM 

1    had  known.     At  that  time  I  thought  little  of 
2ji    the  suggestion ,  not  that  I  was  not  much  inter- 

OB 

ca    ested   in   my   many  friends   and  very   many 

acquaintances,  and  intensely  so  in  myself,  but 

«,,      I  did   not  see  how  I  could  make  clearly  my 

in     recollection   of   these    interesting   to   others, 
w 

o    Now  that  I  have  grown  old  and,  like  others 

at  my  time,  growing  more  and  more  fond  of 

looking  back  and  admiring  the  past,  I  decide 

3     to  put  down  some  notes  which  I  trust  will  be 

Q     perused  with    interest    by  those   who    have 

Q 

ca  known  me,  particularly  those  who  have  known 
me  best.  These,  I  am  sure,  will  not  believe 
that  in  this  I  am  seeking  any  more  notoriety 
than  what  has  already  come  from  my  pub- 


6  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

lished  works,  which  is  already  much  more 
than  I  had  expected,  and  more,  as  I  sincerely 
feel,  than  I  deserve.  The  favor  with  which 
they  have  been  received  has  surprised  none 
more  than  myself,  and  it  has  been  the  more 
gratifying  because  of  having  been,  of  late,  the 
chief  means  of  my  support,  after  others,  for 
reasons  outside  of  advanced  age,  had  been 
cut  off.  Remembering  and  intending  to  try 
throughout  to  remember  for  whom,  mainly,  I 
am  writing,  I  begin. 


COL.    RICHARD   MALCOLM  JOHNSTON 


CHAPTER  I 

MY  FATHER,  Malcolm  Johnston,  was  fond  of 
talking  with  his  children  about  the  antecedents 
of  his  family.  Since  his  death  I  have  often 
regretted  that  I  did  not  listen  with  more 
attentiveness.  On  his  father's  side  he  could 
not  go  farther  back  than  to  his  grandfather, 
Rev.  Thomas  Johnston,  who,  early  in  the  last 
century,  emigrating  from  Scotland,  came  first 
to  the  State  of  Pennsylvania — what  county  I 
can  not  now  say.  He  had  already  taken  orders 
in  the  English  Church.  Some  time  after  his 
coming  he  intermarried  with  Sallie  Adamson, 
who  came  of  the  family  of  a  gentleman  who 
afterwards  was  well  known  in  the  early  history 
of  Charlotte  County,  Virginia,  Colonel  Thomas 
Bouldin.  In  this  journeying  southward  he  at 
first  went  no  farther  than  Prince  George  Coun 
ty,  Maryland,  and  for  some  years  was  rector  of 
a  parish  therein.  Subsequently  Colonel  Boul- 


8  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

din,  after  becoming  settled  in  Virginia,  re 
moved  him  thither,  where  he  was  settled  on 
a  piece  of  ground  named  "  The  Glebe,"  in  the 
parish  of  Cornwall,  County  of  Charlotte. 
Among  his  children  the  eldest  was  William, 
who,  after  serving  in  the  War  of  Independ 
ence,  at  its  end  removed,  with  his  family,  in 
the  year  1799,  to  Hancock  County,  Georgia, 
settling  on  a  plantation  four  miles  west  of  the 
village  of  Powelton.  My  father,  Malcolm, 
who  was  the  younger  of  the  two  sons  of  their 
parents,  was  then  eleven  years  old,  having 
been  born  in  Charlotte  County  in  1788. 

William  Johnston's  wife  was  Rebecca 
Mosely,  whose  mother  was  Amy  Goode,  whose 
mother  was  Amy  Greene,  all  of  Charlotte 
C  unty. 

My  mother  was  Catherine  Davenport.  Her 
father,  John  Davenport  (whose  mother  was  a 
Hancock) ,  was  killed  at  the  battle  of  Guilford 
Court  House.  One  of  his  ancesters,  on  immi 
grating  to  this  country,  settled  in  Connecticut. 
Whether  or  not  he  was  the  same  who  founded 


COL.    RICHARD   MALCOLM  JOHNSTON         9 

the  city  of  New  Haven  I  know  not.  He 
resided  in,  and  probably  was  a  native  of,  the 
same  county  of  Charlotte,  wherein  he  inter 
married  with  L,ucy  Barksdale.  Some  years 
after  the  death  of  my  maternal  grandfather  his 
widow  was  married  to  Henry  Burnley,  who, 
in  the  year  1789,  removed  to  the  County  of 
Warren,  on  the  border  of  Hancock,  State  of 
Georgia. 

As  it  seems  to  me  now,  my  childhood  was 
unmixedly  happy  in  spite  of  my  being  through 
out  of  weakly  health  of  body,  and  so  continued 
until  I  was  fifteen  years  old.  The  living  at 
our  house  was  mingled  of  strictest  dicipline 
with  affectionateness  to  whose  tenderness  there 
seemed  to  be  no  bounds.  We  children  were 
an  ardent  set,  and  our  parents  punished  our 
oft  offendings  with  switches  pulled  from  the 
peach  tree.  But  afterwards  we  were  not  sub 
jected  to  everlasting  talkings  about  it.  In 
stead,  a  reasonably  healthy  flagellation  satis 
fied  every  demand,  and  we  began  with  re 
stored  love  and  confidence  upon  a  new  career. 


10  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

L,ike  other  children  who  are  not  strong  enough 
to  be  much  out  of  doors,  and  who  must  be 
occupied  with  something  within,  I  learned 
early  to  read.  I  have  no  recollection  of  a 
time,  except  one,  when  I  could  not  read,  and 
I  remember  how  my  father  was  chagrined  in 
that  case.  It  was  with  me  then  as  it  has  been 
ever  since — to  apprehend  quickly  and  as 
quickly  forget.  One  day  a  gentleman  visiting 
at  our  house  noticing  me  upon  the  floor  inter 
ested  about  some  trifle,  made  some  remark. 
My  father  said  with  some  pride  that  I  knew 
how  to  read,  and  forthwith  he  took  from  a 
table  near  by  a  copy  of  Mercer's  Cluster,  the 
hymn  book  then  used  by  the  Baptists,  called 
me,  lifted  me  upon  his  lap,  and  opening  some 
where  confidently  bade  me  proceed.  I  looked 
on  the  page  and  thought  how  singular  that  I 
should  have  forgotten  every  blessed  thing  the 
familiarity  with  which  had  been  making  the 
whole  family  so  proud.  But  I  had  forgotten 
the  art.  So  I  looked  up  to  my  father  in 
vague  shame  and  sympathy.  After  some  vain 


COI,.    RICHARD   MALCOIvM  JOHNSTON       II 

remonstrances  he  let  me  go  down.  I  don't 
remember  if  the  guest  laughed.  I  was  then 
somewhere  between  three  and  four. 

I  can  just  remember  that  my  father  during 
these  times  was  an  active,  ardent,  rather  gay 
man  in  spite  of  his  weight  of  two  hundred  and 
fifty  pounds,  and  that  my  mother,  somewhat 
his  senior,  had  a  quietness  which  tended  more 
and  more  toward  melancholy.  He  was  a 
leader  in  neighborhood  parties  whereat  indul 
gence  in  dancing  was  not  forbidden  too 
strictly.  He  was  fond  of  fox  hunting,  and 
being  one  of  the  five  freeholder  judges  of  the 
county  court,  he  not  seldom,  when  its  session 
was  over,  lingered  at  Sparta,  the  county  seat, 
and  for  a  day  or  two  and  as  many  nights 
played  poker  with  other  friends  of  that  game. 
Afterwards,  and  when  he  become  a  clergy 
man,  in  referring  to  these  games  he  used  to 
say  with  pardonable  pride  that  he  came  off 
winner  more  often  than  loser. 

When  he  was  about  five  and  thirty  he  felt 
as  if  he  ought  to  change  the  manner  of  his 


12  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 

life.  There  was  no  Episcopal  church  near  by, 
so  he  joined,  the  denomination  of  his  mother, 
the  Baptist.  Not  long  afterwards  Jesse  Mercer, 
the  head  Baptist  in  Georgia,  one  of  the  wisest 
men  whom  the  South  has  produced,  prevailed 
upon  him  to  become  a  clergyman.  He  had 
had  an  education  much  more  limited  than 
that  of  his  father,  but  on  a  line  with  that  of 
some  of  the  leading  men  of  the  State.  And 
so  he  set  forth.  Some  persons  who  used  to 
hear  him  preach  have  told  me  that  he  was 
uncommonly  succinct,  sometimes  almost  elo 
quent  in  delivery  of  his  views,  and  (what  in 
those  days  was  as  delightful  as  rare)  he  used 
to  stop  when  he  was  through  with  what  he 
had  to  say.  I  remember  to  have  heard  him 
preach  once  or  twice,  and  that  he  seemed  to 
be  rather  embarrassed,  even  when  giving  ex 
pression  to  strongest  denominational  opinions. 
He  was  an  ardent  partisan  as  well  in  religion 
as  in  politics.  I  heard  him  say  once  that 
for  all  his  preachings  during  twenty  years 
he  had  not  been  paid  as  much  as  twenty-five 


COL.    RICHARD   MALCOLM  JOHNSTON       13 

dollars  in  money.  Indeed,  many  of  the  Bap 
tist  divines  in  those  days  had  more  worldly 
goods  than  a  large  majority  of  their  congrega 
tions,  and  so  they  were  in  condition  to  avail 
themselves  of  that  higher  beatitude — giving, 
instead  of  receiving.  The  policy  of  Jesse 
Mercer  was  to  make  preachers  of  leading 
planters.  It  was  wise;  it  led  to  the  bringing 
into  the  Baptist  Church  of  probably  three- 
fourths  of  the  land-owners  and  negro-owners 
of  Middle  Georgia. 

My  father's  conversion,  as  they  used  to 
call  it,  was  followed  by  quick  changes.  He 
gave  up  dancing  and  card-playing.  Before 
that  he  used  to  make  a  bowl  of  toddy  of  morn 
ings  before  breakfast,  have  it  graced  by  the 
touch  of  my  mother's  lips,  modestly  sipped  by 
us  children,  then  drained  by  himself.  All 
these  were  stopped  at  once.  He  used  to  be 
what  they  called  a  bright  Mason,  once  presid 
ing,  in  the  absence  of  the  Master,  over  the 
Grand  Lodge  of  the  State.  But  his  denomi 
nation  being  hostile  to  that  institution,  al- 


14  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

though  he  ever  spoke  of  it  with  respect  and 
some  fondness,  he  never  again  met  his  broth 
ers  of  the  mystic  tie. 

Our  life  at  home  was  ordered  by  rules  which 
to  our  parents  seemed  the  very  best  to  employ. 
The  strictest  obedience  was  required,  and  its 
violations  were  met  with  quick  punishment. 
Even  delegated  authority  was  rigidly  ratified 
there.  Punishments  at  school  were  not  re 
ported,  as  we  foresaw  that  they  were  most 
likely  to  be  approved  without  enquiries  as  to 
the  merit  of  their  infliction.  When  night  came 
a  chapter  was  read,  a  hymn  sung,  a  prayer 
said,  and  by  nine  o'clock  everybody  was  in 
bed  and  soon  afterwards  asleep.  The  next 
morning's  newly  risen  sun  would  find  all,  old 
and  young,  awake  and  preparing  for  the  work 
of  the  new  day.  I  look  back  with  much  fond 
ness  to  those  evening  orisons.  Both  of  my 
parents  sang  well,  and  some  of  the  old  hymns 
were  ineffably  sweet.  Yet,  somehow,  my 
recollections  of  the  Sundays,  except  one,  were 
always  rather  sad.  The  great  monthly  meet- 


COL.    RICHARD   MALCOLM  JOHNSTON       15 

ing  day  was  grand.  We  two  youngest  chil 
dren,  my  sister  Eliza  and  I,  rode  to  church 
with  my  mother  in  the  gig,  drawn  by  Bob,  the 
best  of  sorrels.  The  rest  of  the  day,  after 
returning  home,  was  cheerful,  barring  the  long 
time  we  had  to  wait  after  the  first  table  of 
invited  guests  to  dinner  were  served.  But  the 
other  Sundays  seemed  gloomy.  The  children 
were  not  allowed  to  go  off  the  premises,  or 
even  to  play,  such  was  the  idea  of  observance 
of  the  Sabbath.  My  mother  all  day  long  read 
the  Bible  and  Pilgrim's  Progress,  and  my 
father,  naturally  a  cheerful  man,  meditated  in 
harmony  with  the  thoughts  of  this  strange 
book.  Yet  Monday  morning  lifted  the  sombre 
veil  and  all  went  cheerfully  enough  to  their 
accustomed  employment. 

When  I  was  five  years  old  I  was  sent  to 
school  along  with  my  older  brother,  Mark. 
The  teacher  was  a  man  named  Hogg.  I  can 
recall  but  one  single  incident  occurring  at  this 
school,  which  was  kept  in  a  small  log  house 
in  an  old  field  near  the  line  of  the  farms  of  two 


1 6  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 

of  our  neighbors,  Mr.  Edmund  Randle  and 
Mr.  Hamilton  Bonner.  The  teacher  kept  a 
large  red  book  like  a  merchant's  ledger,  in 
which  he  was  fond  of  drawing  with  a  pen 
sketches  of  men,  horses  and  other  things. 
One  day,  going  to  him  to  ask  something 
about  my  lesson,  I  inadvertently  struck  his 
elbow  while  in  the  midst  of  some  essay  of  his 
art,  and  this  incensed  him  to  the  degree  that 
he  gave  me  a  box  upon  my  cheek,  and  sent 
me  away  no  wiser  than  when  I  came  to  him. 
He  was  succeeded  by  a  man  named  Josiah 
Yellowby ,  whom  and  his  wife  Delilah  I  recalled 
while  writing  my  story  of  How  Mr.  Bill  Wil 
liams  Took  the  Responsibility.  Little  do  I  re 
member  of  the  times  I  had  then  except  the 
last  day.  The  boys  had  been  asking,  and  in 
vain,  for  a  holiday.  One  morning  they  met 
the  teacher  at  the  school-house  door,  where 
the  request  was  again  made,  and  on  his  con 
tinued  refusal  they  seized  and  carried  him  to 
the  spring  branch.  Persisting  in  the  refusal 
of  their  demands,  four  of  the  largest,  taking 


COL.    RICHARD   MALCOLM   JOHNSTON       17 

him  by  the  hands  and  feet,  let  him  down  into 
the  stream.  The  water  had  reached  to  his 
chin,  when  he  gave  up.  Then  he  dismissed 
the  school  (for  it  was  near  the  end  of  the 
term),  went  away  from  the  neighborhood,  and 
I  never  saw  him  again.  His  little  dog  Rum 
and  his  wife's  mare  Kate  were  as  I  have  de 
scribed  them  in  my  story,  although  what  was 
told  of  the  wife,  a  homely  female,  was  pure 
invention. 

My  next  teacher  was  James  Hilsman,  son 
of  one  of  the  neighbors.  He  kept  school  at  a 
cross-roads  near  his  father's  residence,  which 
was  nearly  two  miles  from  our  house.  This 
man  was  afterwards  suspected  of  having  been 
rather  insane  always.  He  delighted  in  pun 
ishing.  I  think  I  must  have  gotten  an  aver 
age  of  at  least  one  whipping  a  day,  though  I 
was  less  than  seven  years  old.  He  was  not  as 
fierce  as  Israel  Meadows,  whom  I  have  de 
scribed  in  The  Goose  Pond  School,  yet  I  remem 
ber  that  he  had  the  circus  and  the  horses.  In 
the  latter  I  used  to  alternate  in  the  riding  and 


1 8  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

carrying  with  a  boy  named  Buck  Connell. 
The  teacher  bore  with  special  heaviness  upon 
his  younger  brothers.  I  think  he  must  have 
intended  to  make  such  treatment  pass  for  evi 
dence  that  he  was  impartial  in  his  discipline. 
At  all  events,  no  complaint  was  made  of  it, 
many  parents  in  those  days  seeming  to  believe 
that  education  could  not  be  imparted  so  well 
in  any  other  wise  as  by  application  of  the  rod. 
This  poor  man  was  afterwards  killed  by  his 
son-in-law,  whom  he  was  pursuing  and  was 
about  to  shoot  after  a  runaway  marriage  with 
one  of  his  daughters. 

After  him  a  man  named  Barnes  Sims  taught 
in  a  house  that  used  to  be  occupied  by  Mr. 
William  Long,  from  whom  upon  his  removal 
to  Troup  County  my  father  purchased  it  with 
the  plantation.  I  remember  little  of  this 
school,  beyond  the  fact  that  some  of  the  larger 
boys  established  in  a  room  of  the  second 
story  what  they  called  a  "Freemason's 
Lodge,"  and  that  I  and  several  others  about 
my  capacity  were  initiated  with  ceremonies 


COL.    RICHARD   MALCOLM  JOHNSTON       19 

that  for  a  long  time  afterwards  I  could  not 
recall  without  some  resentment.  The  teacher 
was  a  kind  man,  too  kind,  I  suspect,  for  his 
vocation,  which  he  soon  after  relinquished. 
Very  often  I  recall  a  prayer  that  I  made  one 
day  while  standing  alone  by  the  spring  at  the 
foot  of  the  hill.  My  oldest  brother,  Albon, 
just  come  to  his  one-and-twentieth  year,  had 
died  that  fall  from  sickness  contracted  while 
waiting  on  a  sick  child  of  Colonel  Farmin, 
one  of  our  neighbors.  This  affliction  bore 
with  great  heaviness  upon  my  parents.  On 
this  occasion  while  thinking  of  my  brother, 
partly  for  my  own  sense  of  his  loss,  but 
mainly  for  sympathy  with  the  grief  of  others, 
I  prayed  that  when  I  went  home  in  the  even 
ing  I  might  find  him  returned  to  life,  and  I 
indulged  a  strong  hope  that  so  it  would  be. 
My  disappointment  was  very  sorrowful  and 
humiliating,  but  I  spoke  not  of  it  to  any  one. 
Some  time  afterwards  my  mother,  taking  with 
her  my  next  older  brother,  Mark,  and  sister 
Eliza,  went  for  a  visit  of  a  day  and  night  to 


20  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

my  sister  Sarah  Ann,  who  was  lately  married 
and  living  near  the  town  of  Crawfordville, 
ten  miles  away.  At  night  after  supper  my 
father  and  I  were  on  the  piazza,,  he  sitting  on 
a  chair  and  I  on  the  top  step.  We  had  en 
dured  the  absence  well  enough  during  the 
day,  but  now  he  lapsed  into  a  silence,  and  I 
knew  he  was  thinking  of  the  dead  as  of  the 
absent.  He  sat  and  picked  the  seed  from  a 
parcel  of  cotton  on  his  lap,  a  thing  often  done 
at  night  by  men  in  our  neighborhood,  partly 
from  habit  before  the  invention  of  the  gin,  part 
ly  for  entertainment,  and  partly  because  a  softer 
staple  than  that  gotten  by  the  gin  was  obtained 
for  thread  in  the  knitting  of  stockings.  For 
some  time  I  sought  to  entertain  him,  but 
when  he  only  answered  briefly  what  I  asked 
and  narrated,  I  became  silent  and  sad  also. 
It  was  the  first  wave  of  melancholy  that  had 
come  over  my  spirit.  I  listened  to  the  katy 
dids,  and  thought  of  how  brother  Albon  used 
to  hear  them,  but  not  now.  Then  I  thought 
that  the  time  would  come  when  like  him  my 


COL.    RICHARD   MALCOLM  JOHNSTON       21 

mother  and  father  would  depart  forever  out  of 
my  sight.  Indulgence  of  the  feeling  was  no 
doubt  brief,  but  I  remember  it  well,  and  that 
my  heart  was  full  of  that  sort  of  sadness  of 
which  we  never  can  speak,  never  can  feel  like 
speaking  to  another.  Since  then  the  fondest 
to  me  of  all  night  sounds  has  been  what  always 
seems  the  wailing  of  the  katydid. 


CHAPTER  II 

IN  THE  year  1831,  when  I  was  nine  years 
old,  my  father,  leaving  the  plantation  in  the 
hands  of  the  overseer,  removed  with  his  family 
to  Crawfordville,  ten  miles  distant,  for  the 
purpose  of  getting  better  facilities  for  the 
education  of  his  children.  The  school  was 
kept  by  William  Cowdry,  a  South  Carolinian 
of  liberal  education.  At  ten  I  was  put  in 
Latin,  but  made  little  progress  until  three 
years  afterwards,  when  we  removed  to  Powel- 
ton,  only  four  miles  from  our  plantation  home. 
The  school  at  Powelton  had  been  excellent 
for  several  years.  It  got  its  first  reputation 
under  Salem  Town,  a  Massachusetts  man, 
who  not  long  had  returned  to  his  native  State 
and  become  author  of  several  school  books, 
which  had  a  large  sale.  Many  boys  educated 
at  his  famous  school  afterwards  became  dis 
tinguished,  among  them  Governor  Charles  J. 


24  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OP 

Jenkins,  Judge  A.  Nesbit,  Senator  Walter 
Colquitt,  Hon.  Mark  A.  Cooper,  and  others. 
At  this  time  the  school  was  kept  by  Lucian 
Whittle,  a  native  of  Vermont  and  graduate 
of  Middleburg  College.  He  was  a  man  of 
excellent  culture  and  one  of  the  best  of 
teachers.  Under  him  I  learned  L,atin  and 
Greek  with  much  ease.  We  lost  him  in  a 
singular  way.  His  assistant  in  the  school  was 
Miss  Rebecca  Pratt,  also  a  native  of  Vermont 
and  one  of  the  loveliest  as  well  as  most  accom 
plished  of  women.  For  her  I  had  a  sort  of 
worship.  I  used  to  feel  rather  sad  sometimes 
to  think  how  much  too  young  for  her  I  was. 
I  remembered  this  in  the  little  story  of  Mr. 
Thomas  Watts,  though  the  state  of  my  feelings 
never  became  known  to  her  nor  anybody  else. 
With  her  Mr.  Whittle  fell  deeply  in  love,  and 
desired  earnestly  to  marry  her.  She  did  not 
return  his  affection.  So  one  day,  it  was  in 
the  year  1835,  he  left  the  village,  saying  that 
he  was  going  to  Augusta,  the  principal  town 
in  that  region,  for  the  purpose  of  purchasing 


COL.    RICHARD   MALCOLM  JOHNSTON       25 

some  dramatic  pieces  for  us  to  enact  at  the 
approaching  midsummer  commencement.  We 
never  saw  him  again.  His  reason  had  become 
unsettled.  He  wandered  off  to  the  West,  and 
we  never  heard  what  became  of  him  after 
wards.  I  felt  deeply  his  loss,  because  I  had 
grown  to  have  for  him  much  affection,  in 
spite  of  the  rigor  of  his  discipline.  I  had 
great  dread  of  his  displeasure.  His  tasks  upon 
me  were  always  as  much  as  I  could  do,  even 
with  the  help  of  my  prayers.  For  a  long  time 
I  had  the  habit  of  leaning  my  head  upon  the 
desk  just  before  I  was  to  be  called  to  recita- 
ation  and  saying  a  silent  prayer  that  I  might 
say  my  lesson  in  a  manner  acceptable  to  Mr. 
Whittle.  Soon  afterwards  Miss  Pratt  married 
Colonel  Boydman,  a  wealthy  planter  from  the 
County  of  Houston. 

After  the  departure  of  Mr.  Whittle  the  trus 
tees  secured  Simpson  Fouche,  esq.,  a  native  of 
the  County  of  Wilkes.  He  had  been  educated 
at  the  University  of  Virginia  and  had  prac 
ticed  some  years  at  the  bar.  I  rather  think 


26  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OP 

that  he  was  the  first  well-educated  native  to 
keep  a  school  in  that  region.  He  was  a  man 
of  fine  ability,  and  would  have  become  a  dis 
tinguished  politician  if  he  had  known  better 
how  to  restrain  his  too -ardent  temper.  As  it 
was,  he  sometimes  would  take  prominent  part 
in  campaigning,  especially  Presidential,  and 
he  could  hold  his  own  well  with  the  best 
stump-speakers.  As  a  teacher  he  was  perfect, 
with  one  exception.  His  discipline  was  ex 
tremely  rigorous,  and  he  punished  with  a  pas 
sion  and  severity  that  sometimes  bore  very 
hard  upon  those  who  were  not  too  large  to  be 
out  of  danger.  I  went  to  him  for  two  years 
and  a  half,  and  never  during  a  single  day  all 
that  time  was  I  free  from  the  fear  of  being 
punished  before  the  day  ended.  Yet  I  liked 
him  because  he  was  so  competent,  so  faithful, 
and  meant  to  be  entirely  just.  He  kept  a  list 
of  all  the  lessons,  perfect  and  imperfect,  that 
had  been  recited  during  the  term,  and  read  it 
aloud  at  the  midsummer  examinations,  which, 
occupying  two  days,  were  attended  by  many 


COL.    RICHARD   MALCOLM  JOHNSTON       27 

hundreds  of  visitors.  On  such  occasions  the 
pride  that  I  used  to  feel  when  my  imperfect 
lessons  were  sounded  aloud  to  be  none,  filled 
me  with  pride  which  seemed  to  me  then  emi 
nently  noble,  and  I  was  fully  compensated  for 
all  the  apprehensions  that  I  had  undergone. 

At  the  end  of  the  year  1837,  my  brother 
Mark  having  returned  from  the  University  of 
Virginia  and  I  being  destined  to  go  to  college 
after  another  year,  we  removed  to  our  home 
on  the  plantation.  At  that  time  I  was  almost 
a  dwarf  in  size,  and  never  having  been  strong, 
continuous  attendance  at  school  had  kept  back 
my  growth.  I  was  ready  for  the  sophomore 
class  half  advanced,  but  my  father  saw  fit  to 
detain  me  at  home  for  a  year,  and  required  me 
to  work  with  the  negroes  four  days  in  the 
week — from  Monday  morning  to  Thursday 
night.  On  Fridays  and  Saturdays  I  was 
allowed  to  hunt  with  my  gun  and  dogs. 

Conscious  of  the  vast  benefit  that  I  was 
getting  from  this  service,  I  tried,  but  in  vain, 
to  like  it.  Instead  of  this  I  hated  it — hated 


28  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

all  of  it,  plowing,  hoeing,  gathering  corn  and 
cotton.  Sometimes  when  plowing  in  the  sum 
mer  afternoons  I  would  keep  my  eyes  from 
the  sun  for  quite  a  time,  having  a  sort  of  re 
sentful  suspicion  that  when  I  watched  it  it 
refused  to  advance,  and  many  a  time,  after 
thus  forbearing,  have  I  turned  to  it  again  and 
sighed  to  think  how  near  it  was  to  the  place 
in  the  heavens  where  I  had  seen  it  last.  I 
never  could  understand,  considering  how  dili 
gent  at  my  studies  I  had  been  always,  that  I 
should  be  so  reluctant  to  do  farm  work.  I 
have  always  loved  the  country  and  the  sight 
of  country  work,  but  never  could  overcome 
the  irksomeness  of  doing  it  myself.  My 
father  was  not  one  whom  it  would  have  been 
worth  my  while  to  undertake  to  divert  from 
his  purpose,  and  so  I  continued  to  work  with 
more  or  less  fidelity.  When  Thursday  night 
came  whoever  would  have  liked  to  see  a  glad 
boy  would  have  been  satisfied  to  come  to  our 
house.  This  discipline  served  its  purpose,  and 
I  grew  in  size,  strength,  and  health. 


CO!,.    RICHARD   MALCOIyM  JOHNSTON       29 

Manual  labor  two  hours  a  day  was  a  part  of 
the  discipline  in  Mercer  University,  whither  I 
was  sent  in  February  of  1839.  At  the  end  of 
that  year  I  had  grown  from  something  under 
five  to  my  present  height,  six  feet,  and  had 
acquired  a  soundness  of  body  which  has  kept 
with  me  until  now. 

I  doubt  if  ever  there  was  a  boy  more  green 
than  I  had  been  always  and  continued  to  be. 
I  used  to  be  the  most  credulous  of  mankind. 
In  my  father's  house  there  never  had  been 
secrets  of  any  kind.  He  and  my  mother  were 
entirely  candid  with  each  other,  their  children, 
their  servants,  their  neighbors,  all  with  whom 
they  ever  met.  I  believed  what  the  negroes, 
even  the  negro  children,  said,  the  same  as 
everybody  else.  I  used  to  envy  our  negro 
boys,  Antony,  Simeon,  Ned,  and  others  of 
my  own  age,  for  knowing  so  much  more  about 
everything  than  I  did,  except  books.  Away 
from  home  I  felt  a  sense  of  incompleteness  in 
myself  which  seemed  to  disqualify  me  for  any 
thing  except  preparing  well  lessons  in  my 


30  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OP 

books.  Up  to  this  time  I  had  read  Don 
Quixote,  Alonzo  and  Melissa,  The  Bandit's 
Bride,  The  Three  Spaniards,  The  Scottish 
Chiefs,  and  Thaddeus  of  Warsaw.  I  have 
been  sorry  ever  since  I  read  the  first  when  so 
young.  It  interested  me  deeply,  but  not  the 
humorous  with  which  it  abounds.  I  loved 
the  episodes  in  it,  and  whatever  had  anything 
about  love,  especially  love  opposed  or  delayed 
by  difficulties.  I  often  laugh  at  the  remem 
brance  of  things  therein  recorded,  the  humor 
of  which  I  did  not  then  perceive.  For  the 
Don  I  had  much  compassion  always,  and  I 
think  I  was  rather  glad  when  Sancho  Panza 
would  shut  his  mouth.  The  other  books 
absorbed  me  quite.  I  love  yet  to  think  of  the 
delight,  sometimes  painful,  even  terrified,  with 
which  I  pored  over  them. 

My  sensitiveness  was  extreme.  When 
people  laughed  at  my  mistakes  it  cut  me  to 
the  quick,  often  to  shedding  tears  of  shame. 
I  took  the  notion  that  I  would  never  be  able 
to  manage  any  business  well,  or  do  anything 


COL.    RICHARD   MALCOIyM  JOHNSTON       31 

that  would  be  of  value  to  anybody,  including 
myself.  But  going  from  home  imparted  more 
strength.  I  had  been  so  well  prepared  in 
studies  that  I  found  myself  at  once  able  to 
keep  along  with  the  best  of  the  sophomore 
class  which  I  entered.  When  my  father,  after 
leaving  me  at  the  college,  drove  out  of  the 
village,  I  watched  him  from  behind  a  chimney 
of  one  of  the  college  buildings  and  wept  and 
wept  when  he  had  gotten  out  of  my  sight. 
Our  home  was  but  a  little  more  than  twenty 
miles  away,  and  as  often  as  once  in  every  two 
months,  after  making  up  my  lesson  for  Satur 
day  morning,  I  got  leave,  and  walking  to  the 
residence  of  my  youngest  sister's  father-in-law, 
four  miles  out,  or  to  one  of  his  neighbors, 
begged  on  a  Friday  afternoon — and  was 
always  granted — the  loan  of  a  horse  for  a  two 
days'  visit  home.  The  one  whom  I  wished 
most  to  see  was  my  mother,  in  whose  lap  I 
used  to  lay  my  head  as  she  fondled  my  hair,  a 
practice  continued  through  our  joint  lives 
ntil  h^r  daath,  when  I  was  twenty. 


32  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

College  life  imparted  to  me  some  self- 
reliance,  which  theretofore  I  had  never  been 
able  to  acquire.  I  soon  began  to  take  part  in 
the  Saturday  morning  debates  of  the  Phi  Delta 
Society,  of  which  I  was  a  member.  Declama 
tion  had  been  ever  taught  in  our  school,  and 
it  was  not  very  difficult  for  me  to  acquire  a 
leading  position.  I  often  recall,  with  a  sense 
of  the  extreme  ridiculousness  of  it  all,  the 
oratorical  attitudes  and  words  which  I  and  my 
rivals  could  employ  with  imagined  high  pas 
sion  in  those  Saturday  discussions,  upon  ques 
tions  of  whose  merits  we  knew  hardly  one 
single  thing. 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON         33 


CHAPTER   III 

WITHIN  the  last  two  years  loss  of  their 
property  had  befallen  the  husbands  of  my  two 
oldest  sisters,  and  one  of  them,  Madison  Cal- 
laway,  husband  of  Catherine,  my  next  oldest 
sister,  died.  It  became  necessary  for  my 
father,  who  went  to  the  relief  of  their  families, 
to  retrench  expenses.  So  immediately  after 
my  graduation,  in  July,  1841,  I  took  a  school 
in  the  village  of  Mount  Zion,  in  our  county. 
This  I  was  not  far  from  abandoning  on  the 
morning  of  the  first  day.  The  gentleman 
whom  I  succeeded  was  singularly  unqualified 
for  the  discipline  of  a  class  in  which  were  sev 
eral  boys  nearly  grown,  and  habituated  to 
mischief.  I  was  much  pained  by  the  rude 
liberties  taken  by  one  of  these,  a  boy  of  nearly 
my  own  size  and  only  a  little  younger,  as  I 
was  moving  among  them,  examining  boys  and 
girls  with  a  view  to  classifying.  Though  tall, 


34  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

I  was  very  slight,  and  very  decidedly  averse 
to  violence  of  any  kind.  Some  of  this  boy's 
attitudes  were  so  unbecoming  that  I  asked 
him  softly  and  with  some  timidity  to  please 
carry  himself  with  propriety.  He  changed  as 
I  was  looking  at  him,  but  in  a  few  minutes 
was  behaving  as  before.  Again  I  asked  him, 
in  the  same  manner  and  tone,  to  oblige  me  by 
complying  with  the  request.  The  same  pre 
tended  respect  was  paid,  followed  by  a  speedy 
withdrawal.  I  went  back  to  my  seat  by  the 
fireplace  and  looked  at  him.  He  seemed  much 
amused  by  my  discomfiture,  which  was  plain 
to  all  eyes,  and  I  noticed  that  he  had  a  large 
knife  open  in  his  hand.  I  looked  at  my  hat, 
and  then  I  resolved  what  I  must  do.  Suppose 
I  should  leave  the  house  and  this,  the  first 
business  upon  which  I  had  entered.  He  was 
heavier  than  I  was,  but  I  had  never  felt  per 
sonal  fear  of  any  person  except  my  parents 
and  others  who  had  right  to  claim  my  obedi 
ence  and  punish  for  refusal  to  render  it.  Yet 
I  was  almost  made  sick  at  the  idea  of  having 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON        35 

an  encounter  with  one  of  my  size  and  nearly 
my  age  in  the  beginning  of  an  engagement  for 
which  I  believed  myself  rather  incompetent, 
to  the  undertaking  of  which  I  had  almost  to 
be  driven  by  my  father  and  urged  by  other 
friends.  I  thought  how  it  would  seem,  if, 
before  I  had  undertaken  it,  or  in  the  inception 
of  undertaking,  I  should  suffer  myself  to  be 
driven  away  by  a  great,  ill-behaved,  lubberly 
boy.  In  a  very  few  moments  I  came  to  my 
self,  so  entirely  as  to  feel  much  indignation, 
and  with  an  eager  wish  to  encounter  him, 
particularly  when  I  noticed  he  had  in  his  hand 
an  open  knife.  He  was  reclining  on  the  last 
bench.  I  walked  rapidly  down  the  aisle  be 
tween  the  desks  of  the  boys  on  one  side  and 
the  girls  on  the  other.  Getting  to  where  he 
was,  I  asked  again  for  his  name,  and  then 
said :  "I  have  asked  you  twice  as  respectfully 
as  I  know  how  to  sit  upon  your  seat  becom 
ingly.  If  you  had  known  anything  of  good 
manners  you  would  not  have  needed  any  such 
reminder  in  the  presence  of  these  girls,  to  say 


36  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

nothing  of  what  is  due  to  me.  Now  I  tell  you 
again  to  take  down  those  great,  ugly,  feet,  and 
if  you  lift  them  again  in  that  disgraceful  way, 
I'll  beat  you  so  that  your  people  will  not  know 
you  when  you  get  back  home."  Resettled 
himself  instantly.  I  went  back  to  my  seat, 
looked  around,  and  saw  and  felt  that  I  could 
be  master.  The  feeling  of  manhood,  for  the 
first  time  in  all  my  life,  rose  in  me  with  a 
strength  that  filled  me  with  delight.  I  felt  as 
relieved  as  dear  old  John  Perrybingle,  just 
after  resigning  the  thought  of  running  away 
from  Dot,  for  indeed,  like  him,  "I  was  very 
near  it." 

Looking  back,  it  never  fails  to  seem  strange 
that  in  those  times  violence  was  regarded  as 
the  only  fit  punishment  for  derelictions  in 
schools.  I  believed  then  that  a  better  dis 
cipline  could  be  employed.  Hereafter  I  will 
speak  of  how  I  inaugurated  one.  Yet  school 
boys  and  school  girls  were  happy.  The  whip 
pings  were  never  thought  to  impose  disgrace, 
and  with  the  truly  educated  teachers  who  had 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON         37 

come  in  these  could  be  avoided  by  diligence 
and  proper  deportment,  which  under  such  a 
regime  obtained  rewards  that  nearly  all  to 
whom  they  were  possible  loved  to  win.  Ex 
aminations  were  the  great  days  of  the  year. 
They  closed  with  exhibitions  of  plays,  to  wit 
ness  which  men,  women,  boys,  girls,  even 
children ,  used  to  come  as  far  as  ten  and  fifteen 
miles.  I  have  seen  more  than  a  thousand  at 
one  of  these  exhibitions  on  a  stage  under  an 
arbor  of  green  boughs  in  front  of  the  school- 
house.  To  persons  of  culture  the  fun  was 
mainly  the  crude  conception  of  scenery  and 
other  appointments  of  the  dramatic  art.  To 
the  rest,  even  to  these,  the  enjoyment  was 
simply  glorious. 

Nearly  all  the  schools  in  that  region  were 
mixed,  or,  as  it  is  now  called,  co-educational. 
For  many  years  the  Powelton  Academy, 
known  far  and  wide,  had  far  more  boarding 
than  resident  pupils.  There  were  no  laws 
against  association  of  boys  with  girls,  yet  in 
all  its  history  there  was  never  a  scandal, 


38  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 

although  many  a  happy  marriage  resulted 
from  affections  there  begun.  I  sincerely  be 
lieve  there  was  never  a  community  in  which 
the  tone  of  purity  was  higher.  After  teach 
ing  until  the  end  of  the  year  1842  I  decided 
to  study  for  the  bar. 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON        39 


CHAPTER  IV. 

I  HAD  read  Blacks tone's  Commentaries  during 
the  last  year  at  Mount  Zion.  Early  in  Decem 
ber  I  went  into  the  law  office  of  Colonel  Henry 
Gumming  at  Augusta,  and  at  the  same  time 
attended  the  law  lectures  of  Mr.  William 
Tracy  Gould  (afterwards  judge),  son  of  Judge 
Gould,  who  with  Judge  Reeve  held  for  many 
years  the  well-known  law  school  at  Litchfield, 
Connecticut.  I  was  admitted  to  the  bar  at 
Augusta  in  about  two  months,  and  returning 
to  Hancock  was  taken  into  partnership  with 
Captain  Eli  W.  Baxter  (afterwards  judge),  a 
lawyer  of  much  eloquence,  but  neither  studious 
nor  regular  in  his  methods.  Few  men,  I  sup 
pose,  were  ever  more  careless  in  the  arrange 
ment  of  papers  and  the  preparation  of  cases. 
Yet  his  vigorous  intellect  and  fervid  eloquence 
gave  him  a  high  standing.  He  had  much 
boldness  and  sincerity  in  asserting  his  opinions. 


40  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

This  cost  him  the  loss  of  his  party,  nomina 
tion  for  governor  (I  believe  it  was  in  1839), 
when  he  announced  himself  in  favor  of  a 
national  bank.  Elected  by  the  legislature 
judge  of  the  northern  circuit,  he  resigned  six 
months  before  the  expiration  of  his  term  and 
removed  to  the  State  of  Texas. 

I  was  married  in  November,  1844,  to  Mary 
Frances  Mansfield,  whose  father,  Kli  Mans 
field,  was  a  native  of  New  Haven.  Her 
mother  was  Nancy  Barrow  Hardwick,  of  our 
county.  I  was  then  twenty-two  and  my  wife 
fifteen  years  of  age.  In  these  two  years  I  had 
done  little  in  |the  profession  besides  clerical 
work.  Almost  all  my  leisure  was  spent  in 
reading  Latin  aad  English  literature.  After 
marriage  I  decided  to  withdraw  from  the  bar. 
The  academy  at  Mount  Zion  was  offered  to  me, 
so  I  returned  and  kept  it  until  the  end  of  the 
year  1846.  The  class  was  large  and  promised 
to  increase  yet  more,  but  Mr.  James  Thomas 
(afterwards  judge)  offered  me  a  partnership, 
which  I  dicided  to  accept.  Returning  to 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON         41 

Sparta  in  December  I  determined  to  study  the 
law  industriously.  I  reported  cases  in  which 
we  were  not  of  counsel,  not  only  in  our 
county,  but  those  of  other  counties  in  which 
we  practiced.  I  read  constantly  three  years, 
taking  notes.  In  that  time  I  found  myself 
regarded  as  a  lawyer  well  grounded  in  princi 
ples  and  familiar  with  pleadings,  which  in  that 
time,  following  English  precedents,  were  much 
complicated.  But  the  habit  of  depending  upon 
my  senior  in  the  conduct  of  jury  trials  I  could 
never  overcome.  Demurrers  or  other  issues 
involving  purely  legal  questions  I  was  rather 
fond  of  arguing,  but  I  was  extremely  reluctant 
to  wrestle  with  facts  before  juries.  This  in 
firmity  increased  to  the  degree  that  I  began  to 
suffer  poignant  anxiety  at  the  approach  of 
court  sessions.  In  the  year  1849  my  partner 
retired,  to  be  made  not  long  afterwards  judge 
of  the  circuit.  I  retired  also,  much  against 
his  most  friendly,  earnest  remonstrances,  and 
for  two  years  kept  the  academy  in  Sparta. 
Again  I  came  back  and  became  partner  of 


42  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

L,inton  Stephens,  who  had  married  a  daughter 
of  Judge  Thomas. 

On  the  retirement  of  Judge  Baxter,  six 
months  before  the  expiration  of  his  term,  ex 
ecutive  appointment  to  his  late  position  was 
offered  to  me,  and  I  was  much  urged  by  him 
and  others  to  accept  it.  But  I,  the  Democratic 
candidate  for  the  judgeship,  had  been  beaten 
a  few  weeks  back  in  a  contest  before  the 
people  by  Judge  Garnett  Andrews,  whom  the 
"Know-Nothings"  had  put  up,  and  so  I  de 
clined  this  appointment.  It  was  understood 
that  I  was  to  be  put  up  again  before  the  leg 
islature  of  1858,  the  election  of  judges  having 
been  remanded  to  that  body.  That  legislature 
was  Democratic,  and  therefore  I  should  have 
been  elected.  But  a  vacancy  in  the  professor 
ship  of  English  literature  having  occurred  in 
the  State  University  by  the  resignation  of  Rev. 
Dr.  Wm.  T.  Brantly,  at  the  ccmmencement 
in  August,  1857,  I  was  elected  to  it.  I  ac 
cepted  after  some  hesitation,  and  retired  for 
good  and  all  from  a  profession  for  which,  in 


COL,.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON         43 

some  of  its  most  important  and  trying  func 
tions,  I  felt  myself  to  be  not  sufficiently 
qualified.  During  the  first  four  or  five  years 
after  coming  to  the  bar  I  took  active  interest 
in  politics,  not  infrequently  taking  the  stump. 
In  time  I  discovered  that  I  was  of  too  ardent 
a  temper  for  a  politician.  Once  even  at  the 
bar  I  came  near  getting  into  a  duel  with  a  per 
sonal  friend  on  account  of  some  intemperate 
language  on  my  part,  upon  what  I  regarded 
and  so  characterized  as  rather  unprofessional 
action  on  his.  Friends  of  us  both  presently  in 
terfered,  and  I  was  very  glad  on  the  next  day 
to  receive  his  hand  instead  of  the  challenge 
which  I  had  expected  and  made  up  my  mind  to 
accept.  I  was  also  involved  in  several  political 
disputes  which  sometimes  threatened  serious 
consequences.  Reflection  led  me  to  retire  from 
active  partisan  contests,  although  I  have  ever 
felt  a  warm  interest  in  the  principles  to  which 
I  have  ever  given  my  adherence. 

A  week  before  my  election  to  the  professor 
ship,  the  trustees  of  Mercer  University,  my 


44  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 

Alma  Mater,  unanimously  elected  me  its  presi 
dent,  despite  the  remonstrances  which,  being 
one  of  the  board,  I  made.  The  salary  was 
larger  than  that  of  the  professorship,  the  offer 
of  which  I  had  been  led  to  expect,  and  they 
would  have  increased  it  further.  But  this 
was  a  denominational  institution  with  a  de 
partment  of  theology  attached.  I  loved  the 
place  and  some  of  the  faculty,  but  I  felt  sure 
that  the  trustees  had  made  a  mistake,  and 
that  I  would  make  a  greater  to  accept  the 
offer.  First,  I  would  have  preferred  a  pro 
fessorship,  even  then,  to  the  presidency,  hav 
ing  little  fondness  to  the  course  of  college 
discipline  then  obtaining  everywhere.  I  knew 
that  I  could  never  practice  over  youth  an 
espionage  from  which  my  feelings  revolted. 
Yet  my  chief  reason  for  declining  was  that, 
although  I  was  a  member  of  the  Baptist 
Church,  my  trust  in  some  of  its  principles  had 
dwindled,  although  I  had  never  contemplated 
withdrawal  from  it  altogether.  Besides,  I 
had  not  taken  part  in  any  of  the  public  exer- 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON        45 

cises  of  the  congregation,  and  it  would  have 
much  embarrassed  me  to  lead  the  morning 
and  evening  prayers  in  the  chapel.  After  the 
election  the  meeting  dispersed  for  dinner. 
Two  hours  afterwards  I  declined  the  offer, 
and  we  at  once  elected  another. 

The  election  at  the  State  University  had  not 
been  solicited  by  me.  Yet  after  reflecting 
upon  it  for  some  weeks  I  decided  to  accept. 
It  was  extremely  sad  to  me,  the  parting  from 
my  partner  and  dearly  loved  friend,  L,inton 
Stephens.  I  remember  always  with  sweet 
pleasure  the  intimate  intercourse  held  by  me 
with  him,  who  was  one  of  the  most  true- 
hearted,  affectionate,  as  he  was  one  of  the 
very  greatest,  men  that  the  State  of  Georgia 
ever  had.  The  next  year,  or  the  one  there 
after,  he  was  raised  to  the  bench  of  the 
Supreme  Court,  and  his  decisions,  during  the 
brief  time  before  his  resignation,  compare 
well  with  those  of  any  judge  in  American  or 
British  courts. 

The  times,  oh,  the  times,  which  he  and  I  have 


46  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OP 

had  together,  both  at  his  house  and  mine,  and 
in  our  buggy  travels  to  and  from  county 
courts  in  our  circuit.  I  shall  refer  to  him 
again  when  I  come  to  speak  of  his  brother 
Alexander. 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON        47 


CHAPTER  V. 

OUR  LIFE  at  Athens  during  the  four  years  we 
spent  there  was  very  happy.  My  wife  and  I 
were  met  with  heartiest  hospitality,  and  we 
made  some  very  warm  friends,  to  be  loved 
afterwards,  living  and  dead.  The  tone  of 
society  therein  had  long  been  high,  probably 
equally  so  with  any  town  in  the  whole  South. 
The  president  of  the  University,  Rev.  Dr. 
Alonzo  Church,  a  native  of  Vermont,  but 
since  his  youngest  manhood  a  resident  in 
Georgia,  was  a  gentleman  of  courtliest  man 
ners.  His  colleagues  were  good  men,  social, 
honorable,  and  during  his  sojourn  never  was 
there  a  serious  dispute  in  the  faculty.  After 
evening  prayers  several  among  us  used  to 
walk,  generally  to  the  new  cemetery  on  the 
banks  of  the  Oconee  River.  Several  evenings 
in  every  week  my  wife  and  I  were  with  friends, 
either  at  their  homes  or  at  ours,  when,  besides 


48  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

conversation,  we  had  music,  I  being  a  moder 
ately  good  flutist  and  she  a  very  excellent 
pianist.  They  used  to  call  on  us  for  such 
entertainment  even  at  large  parties. 

With  one  matter  in  the  University  I  became 
dissatisfied  at  the  start.  My  recitation -room 
was  in  the  second  story  of  the  building  known 
as  New  College,  and  I  was  to  become  responsi 
ble  for  the  good  order  of  that  story  during  the 
day,  the  tutor,  who  selpt  in  one  of  the  rooms, 
having  it  in  charge  at  night.  Looking  over 
a  printed  copy  of  the  rules  that  I  had  not  seen 
before,  I  saw  that  professors  were  required  to 
visit  every  student's  room  within  his  range 
once  a  day.  The  reading  surprised  me,  and 
pained  somewhat.  Yet  I  did  as  required, 
hoping  the  while  to  be  able  to  devise  some 
plan  by  which  a  surveillance  so  inconsonant 
with  my  feelings  could  be  avoided.  I  often 
smile  to  remember  how  ashamed  I  felt  when, 
in  answer  to  my  knock  (for  I  never  would 
enter  without  notice),  I  was  invited  within, 
saluted,  and  offered  a  chair  with  even  more 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON         49 

cordiality  than  might  have  been  expected  by 
the  most  welcome  of  visitors.  Sometimes,  for 
mere  decency's  sake,  I  sat  down  for  a  few 
moments,  conscious  of  the  meanness  of  enter 
ing  as  a  mere  spy,  while  I  was  being  treated 
as  a  gentleman.  I  almost  swore  (to  myself) 
that  I'd  stop  such  as  that.  A  happy  thing 
occurred  one  afternoon  in  (I  think  it  was)  my 
first  week.  The  door  of  my  room  was  at  the 
foot  of  the  stairs  leading  to  the  third  story, 
which  was  under  the  jurisdiction  of  another 
of  the  faculty.  As  I  sat  in  my  rocking  chair 
ruminating  upon  this  new  life,  an  iron  ball, 
four  or  five  inches  in  diameter,  that  once 
belonged  to  a  dumb-bell,  was  started  from  the 
upper  story,  and  rolling  down  step  by  step, 
was  stopped  at  my  door.  I  sprang  up  aston 
ished,  not  to  say  terrified,  by  the  vast  sound ; 
indeed,  I  half  suspected  that  the  whole  of  the 
upper  part  of  the  building  was  crumbling  in. 
Entire  silence  followed  the  stopping  of  the 
projectile,  and  presently  old  Sam,  the  negro 
man-of-all-work  for  that  building,  came  run- 


50  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

ning  up,  seized  upon  the  ball,  and  entered 
where  I  was. 

"What  is  it?"  I  asked. 

"It's  a  i'on  ball  what  deru  young  men  up 
stairs  rolled  down  de  steps,  gis  for  badness. 
I'm  guine  to  hide  it." 

' '  Do  no  such  thing, ' '  I  said ;  ' '  put  it  back 
and  leave  it  where  you  found  it." 

He  was  much  astonished,  but  obeyed. 
When  the  class  came  in  for  recitations  not 
very  long  afterwards,  seeing  the  ball,  I  noticed 
that  some  of  them  were  disappointed  that  I 
made  no  allusion  to  the  matter. 

More  happy  was  another  about  two  weeks 
afterwards,  when  I  had  returned  from  a  jour 
ney  to  my  family,  whom  I  had  not  yet  removed 
from  my  home  in  Hancock.  I  could  not 
reach  Athens  on  the  return  in  time  for  the 
before-breakfast  recitation  of  one  of  my  classes 
on  Monday  morning,  and  so  I  had  asked  one 
of  my  colleagues  to  meet  them  in  my  stead. 
He  did  so.  On  Tuesday  morning,  on  repair 
ing  to  my  room,  I  was  surprised  to  find  no 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON        51 

lesson  had  been  prepared.  On  asking  the 
reason,  the  youth  whom  I  had  called  upon 
answered  that  none  had  been  assigned  by  the 
professor  who  had  taken  my  place  the  day 
before.  It  was  the  junior  class  in  rhetoric, 
and  they  had  been  regularly  reciting  to  me  a 
fixed  number  of  pages. 

I  felt  much  indignation  at  a  subterfuge  so 
unfair,  and,  with  as  much  coolness  as  I  could 
command,  remonstrated.  I  said  that  I  re 
gretted  that  a  necessary  absence  from  my 
college  duties  had  hindered  their  proper  per 
formance  in  even  a  small  degree ;  that  I  had 
not  believed  it  important  to  ask  my  colleague 
to  make  specific  announcement  concerning  a 
matter  which  I  had,  as  I  believed,  abundant 
reason  to  suppose  was  fully  understood ;  that 
hereafter  I  must  leave  to  chance  what  unfin 
ished  business  of  my  own  I  had  left  behind, 
so  as  to  avoid  doing  injury  to  the  obligations 
that  I  had  assumed  here ;  that  having  claimed 
to  be  a  gentleman,  and  having  passed  for  one 
theretofore,  it  seemed  rather  hard  that  such 


52  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

claim  should  be  ignored  simply  because  of  my 
having  quit  one  profession  and  undertaken 
another,  and  that  whatever  was  the  motive 
that  prompted  behavior  so  unexpected,  it  had 
succeeded  at  least,  in  inflicting  pain  which 
would  have  been  greater  but  for  my  conscious 
ness  of  not  deserving  it. 

Some  time  afterwards  I  said  that  hereafter 
I  should  not  visit  students'  chambers  unless  I 
had  something  to  say ;  that  on  my  entry  into 
them,  sometimes,  I  found  them  not  fully 
dressed,  or  not  otherwise  prepared  to  receive 
visitors  outside  of  their  own  set,  and  that  such 
meetings  were  embarrassing  to  me,  more  so 
since  it  was  well  understood  that  I  came,  not 
as  a  visitor,  but  as  an  official  on  his  rounds, 
and  that  whenever  one  of  them  wished  to 
have  the  place  assigned  to  him  during  study 
hours,  I  would  thank  him  to  give  me  notice 
and  ask  permission,  which  I  was  sure  that  I 
would  seldom  feel  that  I  ought  to  withhold. 
Yet  the  most  fortunate  of  all  was  another, 
which  put  me  securely  on  living  terms. 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON         53 

I  decided  to  spend  a  few  minutes  before  the 
hour  of  recitation  was  out  in  reading  to  the  class 
from  one  or  another  of  the  English  authors. 
On  the  second  day  thereafter  I  thought  I 
noticed  in  a  member  of  the  class  a  movement 
which  indicated  that  he  was  bored .  I  addressed 
him  with  some  sharpness,  saying  that  if  he 
chose  to  do  so  he  might  retire  from  the  recita 
tion  room  if  such  behavior  was  repeated.  I 
added  that  I  should  give  up  what  I  had  in 
tended  purely  for  their  benefit.  He  was  a 
good  young  man,  but  unambitious,  even  indo 
lent.  When  the  class  was  dismissed  a  few 
minutes  afterwards  he  was  the  last  to  leave  the 
room,  and  looked  at  me  as  if  he  would  say 
something.  I  remarked  to  him  that  he  seemed 
to  have  been  hurt.  He  answered  that  he  was, 
and  that  I  had  been  mistaken  altogether  in 
what  I  suspected  of  his  action.  I  replied  that 
I  was  very  much  gratified  to  have  him  say  so, 
and  that  I  regretted  that  I  had  spoken  to  him 
with  such  acrimony.  He  left  at  once,  well 
pleased  with  what  I  had  said. 


54  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

In  the  walk  that  afternoon  I  mentioned  to 
one  of  my  colleagues  this  occurrence,  and  said 
that  upon  my  meeting  the  class  on  the  next 
morning  I  should  make  to  this  student  the 
apology  to  which  he  was  entitled.  This  gen 
tleman  remonstrated  earnestly  against  what  he 
prophesied  would  hurt  my  standing  in  the 
institution.  He  even  came  to  see  me  after 
supper  and  urged  me  to  give  up  my  purpose. 
I  could  only  answer  that  I  felt  myself  bound 
to  undo  my  own  wrong  as  far  as  possible, 
without  taking  into  view  the  consequences  of 
such  action.  On  the  next  morning  at  the 
close  of  the  recitation  I  spoke  about  thus  : 

"Gentlemen,  yesterday,  in  your  hearing,  I 

reprimanded  Mr. with  some  severity.  In 

a  conversation  held  with  him  since  I  was  con 
vinced  that  my  suspicion  of  the  intention  in 
his  deportment  was  unfounded,  and  therefore 
my  language  was  unjust.  I  said  as  much  to 
him  ;  but  as  the  class  were  witness  to  the 
affront,  I  thought  that  they  were  entitled  to 
hear  this  withdrawal  and  apology." 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON        55 

I  have  been  seldom  more  gratified  than  by 
what  followed .  They  clapped  with  their  hands , 
stamped  with  their  feet,  and  beat  the  benches 
with  their  books.  Then  I  knew  that  I  had 
not  been  mistaken  in  my  notion  of  how  it  was 
best  to  deal  with  them. 

Our  house  was  nearest  of  all  to  the  college 
buildings.  My  wife  was  warned  against  at 
tempting  to  raise  fowls.  She  did  not  harken, 
however,  believing  that  she  could  succeed. 
She  began  the  habit  of  inviting  the  students, 
in  more  or  less  numbers,  to  tea,  and  afterwards 
they  smoked  with  me  in  the  library.  She 
never  lost  a  chicken.  These  used  to  wander 
out  of  the  yard,  even  as  far  as  the  campus,  but 
it  was  understood  that  they  were  not  to  be 
molested.  One  day  a  student,  seeing  a  young 
chicken,  took  up  a  stone  to  cast  at  it. 

"Stop  that,"  cried  another;  "that  is 
Mrs.  Johnston's  chicken." 

"No,"  answered  the  first,  "it  belongs  to 
those  people  over  yonder,"  as  he  pointed  to  a 
house  beyond  our  side  of  the  campus. 


*K| 

\ 


56  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 

They  ran  down  the  intruder,  and  a  court 
was  improvised  to  decide  if  it  was  liable  to 
confiscation.  A  gentleman,  now  well  known 
in  Georgia,  stood  for  the  defense.  The  jury 
finding  that  the  defendant  was  the  property  of 
Mrs.  Johnston,  it  was  acquitted,  thus  escaping 
until  such  time  as  suited  its  owner's  purposes, 
the  griddle  or  the  frying-pan. 

It  is  very  pleasant  to  recall  many  of  the 
scenes  in  this  happy  period.  To  me  now  it 
seems  to  have  been  almost  unmixedly  con 
tented  until  its  last  year,  1861,  when  the  Con 
federate  war  came  on,  and  I  deemed  it  best  to 
resign  my  position,  retire  to  my  home  in 
Hancock  and  open  a  boarding  school  for  boys. 

I  had  been  opposed  to  the  movement  for  the 
secession  of  the  State  from  the  Union,  although 
I  believed  that  as  a  matter  of  right  it  belonged 
to  Georgia  and  every  other  of  its  confederates. 
The  people  of  Athens,  led  by  the  brothers 
Howell  and  Thomas  Cobb,  were  nearly  uanan- 
imous  in  its  favor.  This  was  the  first  occasion 
on  which  Thomas,  the  younger,  had  taken 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON         57 

any  public  interest  in  political  matters.  Into 
this  campaign  he  rushed  with  all  his  ardor, 
which  was  greater  than  that  of  any  man  whom 
I  have  ever  known.  He  had  been  one  of  the 
most  eminent  and  successful  lawyers  of  the 
State  from  the  time  when  he  was  not  more 
than  twenty-four  until  now,  when  he  was 
thirty-seven  years  of  age.  He  was  deeply 
pious,  often  leading  with  impassioned  addresses 
in  the  prayer  meetings  of  Athens  and  other 
towns  while  in  attendance  upon  court  sessions. 
He  believed  firmly  that  it  was  a  solemn  duty, 
owed  by  him  to  the  Supreme  Being,  to  urge 
secession  as  a  means  pointed  out  by  Provi 
dence  for  the  security  of  the  South,  in  pre 
serving  its  liberties  and  institutions.  The 
crusade  conducted  by  him  was  really  wonder 
ful.  His  great  ability,  his  burning  eloquence, 
his  entire  confidence  in  the  integrity  of  his 
motives  and  the  righteousness  of  the  cause, 
conspired  to  make  him  irresistible.  To  him, 
more  than  to  any  other,  was  due  the  success  of 
the  movement  in  the  State.  Always  he  held 


58  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

himself  ready  to  take  all  risks  and  sacrifices. 

When  the  Ordinance  of  Secession  was  ac 
cepted  by  the  State  Convention  I  felt  pro 
found,  painful  solicitude,  and  did  not  forbear 
on  proper  occasions  to  give  expression  to  it. 
Heartiest  congratulations  were  felt  and  in 
dulged  among  the  townspeople  and  the  stu 
dents,  and  it  was  proposed  that  on  some  night 
all  the  houses  should  be  illuminated  in  witness 
of  the  universal  joy.  A  dear  friend  of  mine 
among  the  faculty,  who  was  an  ardent  seces 
sionist,  first  mentioned  that  matter  to  me, 
expressing  the  hope  that  I  would  not  make 
myself  the  only  exception  among  the  citizens, 
and  expressed  apprehensions  of  insult  offered 
to  me  if  I  did  so.  I  said  at  once  that  nothing 
could  induce  me  to  join  in  a  public  manifesta- 
tation  of  delight  on  an  occasion  so  solemn 
and,  in  my  opinion,  destined  to  lead  to  mis 
fortune.  I  never  asked,  and  never  knew  what, 
if  any,  influence  my  position  had  with  the 
abandonment  of  the  purpose. 

The  trustees  passed  unanimously  a  resolu- 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON         59 

tion  of  regret  when  my  resignation  was  acted 
upon.  Not  long  after  the  beginning  of  the 
next  year  the  college  exercises  were  suspend 
ed,  most  of  the  students  having  gone  into 
military  service.  At  the  end  of  the  year  I 
retired  to  the  new  settlement  made  upon  the 
plantation  in  Hancock,  my  native  county, 
preparatory  to  opening  a  school  for  boys.  I 
gave  it  the  name  of  "  Rockby,"  suggested  by 
the  many  huge  granite  bowlders  on  the  hillside 
above  the  spring  in  the  rear  of  the  mansion. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

I  BKGAN  this  school  upon  a  system  unlike 
any  other  that  I  had  known  or  heard  of.  The 
class,  beginning  with  twenty,  was  engaged 
several  weeks  before  the  opening  in  January, 
1862,  made  up  of  sons  of  leading  merchants, 
lawyers,  and  planters  in  several  portions  of 
the  State.  At  the  opening  I  said  to  them  that 
I  should  neither  practice  espionage  upon  them 
myself,  nor  permit  them  to  practice  it  upon 
one  another,  at  least  with  intent  of  reporting 
to  me ;  that  no  pupil  should  give  to  me  infor 
mation  of  another's  misconduct,  unless  it  was 
hurtful  to  him  personally  or  of  a  nature  that 
an  honorable  person  was  in  duty  bound  to 
make  public,  as  an  admonition  to  others  to 
withdraw  from  the  society  of  the  doer ;  that 
whenever  I  regarded  it  important  for  me  to 
know  the  persons  and  facts  connected  with 
any  matter  of  dereliction,  I  should  call  them 


62  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

all  together  and  demand  that  those  persons 
should  report  themselves  to  me  in  my  study, 
and  that  if  any  one  failed  to  respond  promptly 
to  this  requisition,  and  the  fact  should  be 
ascertained  by  me  afterwards,  the  one  thus 
failing  would  be  at  once  dismissed  from  the 
school. 

On  Saturdays  I  occasionally  permitted  one 
or  more  to  go  to  the  village,  Sparta,  three 
miles  distant,  without  attendance  by  myself 
or  my  assistant.  Two  things  every  one  was 
bound  by  promise  to  report  of  himself — any 
indulgence  in  profane  language  or  in  intoxi 
cating  drinks. 

I  allowed  use  of  playing  cards,  confining  it, 
however,  to  the  drawing-room  and  the  hall 
and  piazza  of  the  mansion.  I  forbade  it  in 
chambers  and  elsewhere,  knowing  that,  except 
when  within  sight  or  hearing  of  their  elders 
they  would  get  into  disputings,  as  is  the  case, 
strangely  enough,  with  adults.  They  were 
also  forbidden  to  have  cards  of  their  own . 

Occasionally  on  Friday  evenings  we  invited 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON        63 

girls,  daughters  of  our  neighbors,  and,  to  the 
music  of  a  negro  fiddler,  we  had  dancing  in 
the  dining-room.  Many  of  my  neighbors  be 
longing  to  the  several  religious  bodies  were 
much  surprised  and  a  few  shocked  at  such  a 
system  as  far  contrary  to  those  theretofore  ob 
taining,  and  disastrous  results  were  confidently 
predicted.  Those  owning  orchards  and  other 
things  which  from  all  times  schoolboys  were 
wont  to  invade  had  the  usual  apprehension. 
In  time,  although  the  cost  was  high  compara 
tively  ($500),  the  school  increased  to  beyond 
fifty,  and  applications  many  times  that  num 
ber  were  disappointed. 

The  school  was  continued  through  five 
years  and  a  half  with  a  success  far  beyond  even 
my  own  first  expectations,  and  I  sincerely 
believe  that,  to  say  nothing  of  diligence  and 
advancement  in  studies,  there  has  been  not 
another  anywhere  in  which  veracity  and  other 
things  becoming  honorable  deportment  were 
more  habitually  practiced.  In  every  session, 
naturally,  it  became  necessary  to  dismiss  one 


64  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

or  more  who  were  not  strong  enough  to  con 
form  to  a  discipline  at  once  so  liberal  and  so 
exacting,  and  occasionally  one,  long  used  to 
another,  would  have  broken  in  the  point  of 
absolute  veracity  in  dealiug  with  me  but  for 
the  high  tone  among  leading  pupils  of  which 
he  was  more  afraid  than  of  myself.  In  those 
years  grew  attachments  which  matured  into 
affection  between  my  pupils  and  me,  which 
even  yet  I  am  extremely  fond  to  recall  and 
to  cherish. 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON         65 


CHAPTER  VII 

AFTER  the  close  of  the  Confederate  war  life 
on  a  plantation  in  a  neighborhood  wherein 
negroes  were  more  numerous  than  whites 
became  far  less  agreeable  than  it  had  been 
theretofore.  Mine  for  half  a  mile  bordered  on 
the  public  road  leading  from  our  county  seat 
to  the  one  adjoining  on  the  east.  Like  other 
landholders  thus  situate,  I  allowed  persons 
dwelling  behind  me  to  pass  through  my  plan 
tation  through  a  gate  kept  in  the  rear.  All, 
from  oldest  to  youngest,  regarded  the  obliga 
tion  to  shut  a  plantation  gate  after  passing 
through  as  most  solemnly  binding.  Yet  the 
negroes  in  my  rear,  meaning  by  that  means 
among  others  to  evince  their  consciousness  of 
freedom,  neglected  this  duty,  thus  exposing 
my  fields  to  inroads  from  cattle  and  other 
beasts  browsing  upon  adjoining  fallow  fields. 
I  then  put  a  padlock  on  the  gate,  but  this  they 


66  AUTOBIOGRAPHY    OF 

tore  away,  and  afterwards,  instead  of  following 
the  path  set  apart  along  my  fences  to  the  pub 
lic  road,  took  that  leading  to  my  dwelling,  and 
walking  around  and  in  front  of  it,  took  my 
carriage  way  to  the  public  road.  After  several 
remonstrances  I  threatened  them  with  my 
shotgun,  and  this  diminished  their  maraudings 
considerably. 

In  this  connection  it  seems  to  me  proper  to 
say  that  through  foresight  of  the  emancipation 
of  the  slaves,  its  fact  afterwards  gave  to  me 
never  even  the  slightest  sense  of  pain.  While 
I  did  not  regard  it  as  wrong  to  hold  them  in 
slavery,  yet  I  had  begun  to  feel  embarrassed 
and  oppressed  by  thoughts  of  the  future  of 
both  races,  especially  in  view  of  the  fact  that 
the  inferior  was  increasing  with  great  rapidity. 
The  responsibility  of  their  care  was  always  felt 
by  me  with  much  seriousness,  and,  except  by 
the  continued  appreciation  of  their  moneyed 
value,  I  accumulated  by  their  work  and  my 
own  nothing  beyond  the  maintenance  of  my 
whole  family.  Often  while  speculating  upon 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON        67 

the  subject,  my  feeling  was  that  if  present  con 
ditions  were  not  the  best  for  both  races,  and 
especially  if  there  was  anything  in  them  con 
trary  to  the  will  of  the  Creator,  they  would  be 
changed ;  and  during  the  remainder  of  my  life, 
when  emancipation  became  an  accomplished 
fact,  I  had  a  sense  of  relief  from  very  great 
responsibility — never  before  quite  compre 
hended — although  my  estate  was  thereby  re 
duced  to  nothing  from  fifty  thousand  dollars 
that  it  would  have  brought  at  sale  at  the  com 
mencement  of  the  war.  I  then  had  a  family 
of  seven  children ,  six  of  whom  were  ready  to 
be  educated. 

At  this  time  one  of  my  daughters,  L,ucy,  a 
child  of  fourteen,  seeming  to  her  parents  to  be 
of  uncommonly  good  promise,  after  an  illness 
of  six  days  from  pleuro-pneumonia,  died. 
Prostrated  by  this  loss,  and  apprehending  dete 
rioration  of  the  white  race  in  being  thus  sur 
rounded  by  negroes,  I  and  my  wife,  who  was 
now  my  chief  counsellor,  after  much  reflection, 
decided  to  go  away  from  the  place.  I  knew 


68  AUTOBIOGRAPHY    OF 

that  whithersoever  we  went,  unless  it  was  in 
an  unreasonable  distance,  I  could  take  my 
school  with  me.  In  time  we  decided  upon 
Baltimore,  and  in  the  month  of  June,  1867,  we 
removed  thereto.  Having  purchased  a  place 
within  the  suburbs,  we  gave  it  the  name  of 
"Pen  Lucy,"  in  honor  of  the  child  whose 
grave  we  had  left  behind. 

Forty  boys  (as  many  as  could  be  accommo 
dated)  followed.  Here  for  six  years  I  con 
ducted  my  school  after  the  same  methods  as 
at  "  Rockby."  After  about  three  years  finan 
cial  matters  in  Georgia,  from  which  came  my 
main  supply  of  pupils,  became  greatty  de 
pressed.  The  price  of  cotton — twenty-five 
cents  immediately  after  the  war — declined 
rapidly  to  a  figure  below  ten,  and  I  got  no 
more  than  about  twenty  pupils  from  that 
source,  so  I  supplemented  this  failing  with 
day  pupils  from  Baltimore.  I  found  it  more 
difficult  to  maintain  my  methods  now  than 
before,  because  of  less  personal  contact  and 
familiar  acquaintance  with  half  of  my  pupils. 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON         69 

Yet  the  school  prospered  as  before,  and  lost 
none  of  its  good  name.  Thus  it  was  when  an 
important  change  occurred. 

This  was  my  conversion  to  the  faith  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church.  This,  as  I  foresaw 
that  it  must,  caused  the  boarding  department 
(now  being  made  up  increasingly  less  from 
Georgia)  to  dwindle.  I  had  not,  and  never 
had  had,  as  a  boarder  a  son  of  Catholic  par 
ents,  for  Catholics,  as  is  generally  known, 
do  not  send  their  children  to  schools  (boarding 
schools)  wherein  they  can  not  receive  religious 
instruction.  Although  the  matter  had  been 
revolved  in  the  minds  of  my  wife  and  myself 
during  a  considerable  time,  it  was  known  to 
few  outside  of  the  family,  and  when  the  change 
became  public  it  occasioned  much  surprise, 
and  indeed  many  regrets,  among  our  friends 
and  acquaintances. 

I  continued  the  school,  however,  with  an 
nual  lessening  attendance  for  two  or  three 
years,  then,  declining  to  receive  the  few  board 
ing  pupils  who  offered,  I  opened  and  kept  a 


70  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

small  day  school  in  Baltimore.  This  I  gave 
up  in  a  short  time,  and  taught  a  few  pupils  in 
private. 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON         71 


CHAPTER  VIII 

AND  then  I  bethought  me  to  become  an 
author.  I  had  already  written  a  few  short 
stories  intended  to  illustrate  characters  and 
scenes  among  the  simple  rural  folk  of  my 
native  region  as  they  were  during  the  period 
of  my  childhood,  before  the  time  of  railroads. 
To  this  period  I  have  always  recurred,  and  I 
do  so  now,  with  much  fondness,  and  indeed 
with  high  admiration  for  the  good  sense,  the 
simplicity,  the  uprightness,  the  loyalty  to 
every  known  duty  that  characterized  the  rural 
people  of  middle  Georgia.  Two  or  three  of 
these  stories  were  written  while  I  lived  in  the 
State.  After  my  removal  to  Baltimore,  Mr. 
Henry  C.  Turnbull,  Jr.,  between  whom  and 
myself  soon  arose  a  very  cordial  friendship, 
beginning  publication  of  The  Southern  Maga 
zine,  asked  me  to  allow  him  to  print  these 
stories,  which  had  appeared  in  a  Georgia  jour- 


72  AUTOBIOGRAPHY    OF 

nal  and  were  not  copyrighted.  I  consented  to 
do  so ,  supposing  they  were  to  be  my  last  essays 
on  that  line  of  endeavor.  They  were  so  well 
received  that  I  began  to  write  others,  partly  to 
assist  my  friend  in  his  enterprise  and  partly  to 
subdue  as  far  as  possible  the  feeling  of  home 
sickness  for  my  native  region.  It  never 
occurred  to  me  that  they  were  of  any  sort  of 
value.  Yet  when  a  collection  of  them,  nine  in 
all,  was  printed  by  Mr.  Turnbull,  who  about 
that  time  ended  publication  of  his  magazine, 
and  when  a  copy  of  this  collection  fell  into  the 
hands  of  Henry  M.  Alden,  of  Harper 's  Maga 
zine,  whose  acquaintance  I  had  lately  made,  he 
expressed  much  surprise  that  I  had  not  received 
any  pecuniary  compensation,  and  added  that 
he  would  have  readily  accepted  them  if  they 
had  been  offered  to  him.  Several  things  he 
said  about  them  that  surprised  and  gratified 
me  much. 

I  then  set  into  the  pursuit  of  that  kind  of 
work,  and  down  to  this  time,  besides  my  three 
novels,  Old  Mark  Langs  ton,  Widow  Guthrie, 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON         73 

and  Pearce  Amerson's  Will,  and  other  literary 
work  in  the  way  of  lectures,  juvenile  articles, 
a  History  of  English  Literature,  and  a  Biog 
raphy  of  Alexander  H.  Stephens  (the  last  two 
in  collaboration  with  Dr.  William  Hand 
Browne,  of  Johns  Hopkins  University),  I  have 
written  and  printed  about  eighty  of  these 
stories. 

To  the  publication  of  the  collection  made 
by  Mr.  Turnbull  I  give  the  title  Dukesborough 
Tales,  entirely  arbitrary,  as  also  was  my  nom 
de  plume,  "  Philemon  Perch."  By  the  name 
"  Dukesborough  "  was  intended  Powelton, 
four  miles  from  my  native  place,  and  at  whose 
academy  I  was  educated  the  last  four  years 
preparatory  to  college.  Of  all  places  this  is 
and  has  been  ever  most  fondly  loved  by  me, 
and  I  have  gotten  very,  very  much  solace  to 
the  sadness  of  long  separation  from  it  in 
recalling  people,  places,  and  occasions — once 
familiar — and  imagining  their  like  in  new 
inventions. 

In  making  up  a  story  of  imagination  I  never 


74  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

could  do  without  places.  I  must  see  in  my 
mind  those  places  which  I  have  seen  with  my 
eyes.  My  imagination,  such  as  it  has  been, 
has  taken  care  of  the  rest.  In  order  to  give 
greater  verisimilitude  to  these  stories,  I  some 
times  introduced  myself  upon  the  scenes  as 
taking  part  in  their  action.  This  was  wholly 
imaginary,  as  well  as  most  of  the  actions  in  the 
stories  themselves.  As  it  seemed  to  me,  there 
was  in  that  region,  consisting  (as  far  as  I  be 
came  well  acquainted  with  it)  of  five  or  six 
counties,  an  almost  wonderful  amount  and 
variety  of  individualism.  To  varieties  in  dis 
tricts  of  one  county  were  superadded  others 
entirely  distinct  in  the  others.  Often  when 
with  intent  to  get  up  something  new  for  a 
magazine,  without  a  single  idea  or  purpose  in 
my  mind,  I  have  held  my  pen  in  hand  for  an 
hour  or  more,  then  laid  it  down,  feeling  that 
I  had  about  gleaned  all  from  my  little  field. 
But  not  content  to  turn  myself  away  from  the 
perspective  of  a  check  that  for  several  sufficient 
reasons  would  be  acceptable,  I  have  turned 


COL.    RICHARD    MALCOLM   JOHNSTON       75 

my  eyes  again  upon  the  past,  and  in  time 
appeared  before  them  yet  another  scene, 
whether  in  family  life,  in  the  village,  court 
room,  or  elsewhere,  as  I  began  to  revive  it. 

In  the  start  I  usually  had  only  one  or  two 
characters  in  my  mind,  and  none  or  little 
thought  as  to  how  long  the  story  was  to  be 
conducted  and  how  ended.  As  the  subject 
revived  in  interest,  other  characters  presented 
themselves,  and  according  to  my  feeling  the 
story  went  to  five  thousand,  ten  thousand, 
or  twenty  thousand  words.  Whenever  it  ex 
tended  as  far  as  the  last  figures,  the  manu 
script,  after  the  first  writing,  was  wholly  with 
out  unity,  for  during  its  writing  other  charac- 
acters  and  scenes  introduced  chang  ed  entirely 
the  current  as  it  started  forth.  I  seldom  ended 
a  story  with  the  names  I  started  with,  for  they 
also  have  always  seemed  important  to  my  own 
satisfactory  understanding  and  picturing  of 
characters.  Thus  it  happened  very,  very 
often,  that  an  incident  that  I  could  have  told 
in  five  minutes  has  developed  into  a  story 


76  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

requiring  one  or  two  hours  in  the  reading. 
As  often  has  it  occurred  that  a  character 
selected  for  certain  illustrations  has  evolved 
traits  of  which  I  had  no  thought  at  first,  and 
varied  far  from  the  line  which  I  had  (but 
never  very  clearly)  projected.  Therefore,  my 
custom  has  been  to  rewrite,  seldom  less  than 
twice,  frequently  as  many  as  four  or  five  times. 
I  could  never  feel  that  a  story  was  finished 
until  I  could  plainly  see  my  characters  and 
become  thoroughly  acquainted  with  their  ac 
tions  and  the  intent  of  their  words.  As  for 
attempting  to  analyze  them,  I  never  felt  that 
I  had  any  sort  or  sign  of  gift  for  a  matter  that 
always  appeared  to  me  too  subtle  for  nie  even 
to  essay  to  study  it.  Recalling  a  scene  of  my 
boyhood  or  young  manhood,  and  afterwards 
dwelling  upon  it  with  fondness,  yet  seldom 
without  some  sadness,  I  have  put  it  into  men, 
women,  and  children,  often  out  and  out  inven 
tions  of  my  own  imagining,  yet  in  harmony, 
as  I  clearly  remembered  those  whom  I  well 
knew  in  those  periods. 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON         JJ 

Several  times  when  a  new  story  was  called 
for,  and  my  mind  was  feeling  absolutely 
empty,  my  wife  would  bring  to  my  mind  some 
remembered  oddities  among  our  common 
acquaintances  that  would  serve  for  another 
temporary  supply,  and  I  have  gone  to  work 
again  with  some  heartiness.  Quite  a  number 
of  the  stories,  such  as  Operchee  Cross-firings, 
Moll  and  Virgil,  and  The  Suicidal  Tendencies 
of  Mr.  Ephroditus  Twilley,  I  owe  to  her  timely 
suggestions. 

I  have  been  often  asked  of  which  among 
my  characters  I  was  most  fond.  Perhaps  the 
two  most  often  recurring  to  my  mind  are  Mr. 
Bill  Williams  and  Old  Mr.  Pate,  each  of 
whom  I  extended  through  several  sketches. 
Both  of  these  are  entirely  imaginary,  although 
in  time  they  grew  to  seem  to  me  more  real 
than  the  rest,  and  I  often  suffer  myself  to 
linger  in  their  society,  as  if  they  were  as  real 
as  any  whom  I  ever  knew. 

As  for  laying  out  in  my  mind  plans  for  a 
story,  I  never  once  did  or  attempted  it.  That 


78  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

is  a  thing  for  which  I  never  believed  myself 
to  have  any  capacity.  Characters  and  scenes 
starting  from  one  slight  initiation  in  a  place 
well  remembered,  have  come  along  as  my 
pen  moved,  and  the  finale  became  such  as 
served  to  fit  the  actions.  I  always  thought 
with  my  pen  in  my  hand.  Therefore,  my  first 
manuscripts  were  filled  with  erasures,  inter 
lineations,  changes  of  names,  new  directions 
given  to  characters  and  incidents,  and  others 
of  like  sort. 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON        79 


CHAPTER  IX 

IT  WAS  always  a  gratification  to  me  that 
among  the  surviving  acquaintances  of  my 
earliest  youth,  even  the  plainest,  not  one,  so 
far  as  I  have  heard,  ever  suspected  me  of 
meaning  to  ridicule  them,  either  in  class  or  in 
individual.  Instead,  whenever  one  or  even 
many  of  my  sketches  may  have  seemed  famil 
iar,  and  not  infrequently  some  have  said  con 
fidently  that  they  knew  whom  and  to  what  I 
referred,  they  have  recognized  not  only  the 
affection  I  have  always  had  for  them,  but  the 
respect,  admiration,  and  oft  reverence.  I  never 
heard  complaint  that  I  had  done  injustice  to 
any  man  of  his  memory.  In  the  particular 
neighborhood  wherein  I  was  born,  and  the 
period  of  my  childhood  was  spent,  I  often 
recur  in  this  latest  time  to  the  high  standard 
then  obtaining  in  domestic  and  social  life, 
regarding  them  as  the  more  noteworthy  be- 


80  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

cause  education  in  books  was  so  little  diffused. 
It  was  about  the  time  of  my  birth  that  acade 
mies  were  established  in  a  few  villages, 
notably  in  Powelton  and  Mount  Zion,  in  our 
county.  These  within  a  few  years  rose  to 
great  importance,  and  were  widely  known  and 
patronized  by  leading  families  in  several 
counties.  But  the  rural  people  in  general 
received  no  higher  instruction  in  books  than 
was  to  be  obtained  in  what  were  known  as 
Old  Field  schools,  wherein  besides  spelling, 
reading  and  writing,  geography,  arithmetic, 
and  English  grammar  were  taught  after  fash 
ions  varying  with  the  particular  make-up  of 
the  schoolmasters,  a  class  of  beings  as  unique 
as  perhaps  were  to  be  found  in  the  world. 
Yet  those  early  settlers,  some  of  them  of  good 
Virginia  and  North  Carolina  families,  who 
had  been  lowly  reduced  by  the  War  of  Inde 
pendence,  brought  with  them,  along  with 
sturdy  purposes,  an  amount  of  common  sense, 
and  of  observance  to  recognized  obligations 
whose  influences  were  to  a  very  high  degree 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON         8 1 

benign.  It  was  a  healthy,  fertile  region, 
undulating  in  small  hills,  vales,  and  creeks, 
and  covered  with  dense  forests  of  oak,  hickory, 
and  kindred  growth .  Laving  was  easily  gotten , 
and  mere  money-getting  almost  unknown. 
While  patrician  rule  obtained  for  many  years, 
as  in  all  newly  settled  communities  was  always 
necessarily  the  case,  yet  community  existence 
formed  itself  on  a  basis  approaching  as  nearly 
approximate  equality  as  was  possible  to  the 
sense  of  individual  differences  distinctive  in 
all  minds.  Hospitality  was  regarded  as  indis 
pensable,  even  sacred,  duty.  The  most  lead 
ing  citizens  not  infrequently  sat  at  the  board 
of  their  less  gifted  neighbors,  and  had  the 
latter  perhaps  more  often  at  their  own .  Thus 
a  sense  of  freedom  was  in  every  man's  mind, 
and  this  led  to  the  evolution  of  those  numer 
ous  individualities  by  which  that  and  the 
region  around  was  particularly  distinguished. 
Interchanges  of  visits,  general  rendering  of 
helpful  services  in  cases  of  sickness  or  other 
needs,  contributed  their  part  to  the  develop- 


82  AUTOBIOGRAPHY    OF 

ment  of  loyalty  to  every  duty,  to  charitable 
ness,  veracity,  and  courage.  The  people  all 
laughed  at  one  another's  eccentricities  and 
instances  of  overweaning  aspirations,  and 
equally  despised  meanness,  stinginess,  coward 
ice,  lying,  and  other  such  defalcations  from 
integrity  and  manfulness  of  life. 

A  large  majority  of  the  purely  rural  popu 
lation  were  Baptists.  Quite  a  number  of  men 
were  members  of  some  church ;  the  women 
were  so  almost  without  exception ;  the  non- 
professing  husbands  being  as  zealous  as  the 
others  in  all  things  needed  for  the  mainte 
nance  of  the  meeting-house,  and  as  ardent  par 
tisans  for  the  tenets  of  the  faith  practiced  by 
their  wives.  Under  the  lead  of  the  greatest 
preachers  of  the  period,  Jesse  Mercer  of  the 
Baptists,  and  L,ovick  Pierce  of  the  Methodists, 
was  a  good  deal  of  asperity  in  discussion  both 
inside  of  the  pulpit  and  out.  Men,  sometimes 
women,  freely  engaged  in  animated  argu 
mentation  upon  doctrinal  points,  the  very 
subtlest  and  knottiest;  men  who  were  not 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON        83 

members  perhaps  counting  for  the  salvation 
of  their  souls  upon  their  being  at  least  not 
Methodists  or  not  Baptist  according  to  the 
membership  enrollment  of  their  wives.  Among 
these  people  generally,  especially  among  the 
women,  was  piety  that  was  as  sincere  as  it 
was  in  the  main  cheerful .  Many  had  read  the 
whole  Bible  over  and  over  again,  and  were 
able  to  quote  freely  its  recorded  doings  and 
sayings.  As  for  feminine  honor,  it  was  not 
more  free  from  hurt  than  the  apprehension  or 
thought  of  it. 

The  stated  Sunday  meeting  day  was  attended 
by  all  from  oldest  to  youngest,  and  many  a 
marriage  resulted  from  courtings  on  horse 
back  rides  to  girls'  homes  when  the  exercises 
were  over.  Among  other  things,  as  I  recall 
them,  the  men  as  a  rule  had  a  sort  of  rever 
ence  for  their  women .  According  to  the  laws 
of  the  State  regarding  property,  the  husband 
became  owner  of  the  whole  of  the  wife's  prop 
erty.  I  do  not  now  recall  a  case  of  either 
ante-nuptial  or  post-nuptial  settlement  of  even 


84  AUTOBIOGRAPHY    OF 

a  part  of  the  latter.  Husband  and  wife  were 
regarded,  as  far  as  concerned  business  with 
the  world,  one  being,  that  of  the  latter  having 
been  merged  in  that  of  the  former.  The 
marriage  union  was  regarded  indissoluble, 
except  by  act  of  the  Creator  who  had  formed 
it.  I  can  remember  the  first  libel  for  divorce 
in  that  region,  and  the  awe  which  it  put  upon 
almost  all  minds.  As  for  domestic  happiness, 
I  doubt  if  it  was  ever  on  a  better  scale  any 
where  else.  As  a  rule,  marriage  took  place 
as  soon  as  boys  and  girls  grew  to  puberty. 
Courtships  were  brief,  yet  hands  were  joined 
with  profound  assurance  that  they  were  to  be 
parted  by  nothing  except  death.  The  young 
bride  knew  that  with  herself  and  her  name 
she  gave  all  else  that  she  possessed,  and  she 
joyfully  let  herself  become  absorbed  into  the 
one  whom  she  believed  that  Heaven  had  sent 
for  her  one  earthly  guide  and  defender. 

Out  of  this  simple  life  I  have  drawn  from 
memory  the  materials  used  in  my  Sketches, 
which,  although  in  far  the  greatest  number  of 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON        85 

cases  were  inventions,  yet  are  in  entire  har 
mony  with  the  real  as  I  recall  it.  As  for  the 
dialect,  I  do  not  see  how  I  could  make  a  mis 
take,  accustomed  as  I  was  to  both  hearing  and 
speaking  it  when  in  familiar  intercourse  with 
persons  of  all  degrees  of  culture.  Educated 
persons,  including  eminent  lawyers  and  di 
vines,  loved  it  well,  and  spoke  it  often  even  in 
the  society  of  themselves  alone,  except  when 
in  serious  discourse.  There  are  things  in  one's 
thoughts  sometimes,  particularly  upon  humor 
ous  themes,  that  can  not  be  put  with  near  as 
much  aptness  and  poignancy  in  entirely  gram 
matical,  rhetorical  phrases.  Even  if  this  were 
possible,  the  characters  that  I  have  tried  to 
illustrate  spoke  the  language  that  I  put  into 
their  mouths. 

I  said  that  I  began  writing  after  my  re 
moval  to  Baltimore,  partly  for  the  sake  of 
subduing  as  far  as  possible  the  sense  of  home 
sickness.  I  might  add,  of  alleviating  the  bur 
den  of  misapprehension  which  soon  befell  me, 
that  perhaps  after  all  I  had  made  a  mistake  in 


86  AUTOBIOGRAPHY    OF 

coming  so  far  away  from  the  other  people  who 
knew  me,  and  setting  out  to  maintain  my  large 
family  among  strangers,  by  practice  of  my 
profession,  my  entire  competency  for  which 
was  not  known  outside  of  my  native  State.  In 
the  fall  of  1867  the  price  of  cotton  began  to 
decline  rapidly,  and  foreseeing  that  planters 
and  others  who  had  sustained  me  heretofore 
must  lessen  in  numbers,  I  became  intensely 
apprehensive  of  the  consequences  upon  my  for 
tunes.  I  knew  well  that  if  I  were  to  return  to 
Georgia  I  could  reinstate  myself  without  dif 
ficulty  or  delay.  But  my  wife,  who  was  al 
ways  my  most  earnest,  trusted,  and  efficient 
counselor,  decided  to  remain,  a  decision  which 
after  all  I  feel  confident  was  the  better.  I 
mention  this  fact  in  connection  with  the  pre 
ceding  to  show  the  frame  of  mind  in  which  I 
wrote  some  of  my  stories,  in  which  only  the 
humorous  appears.  This  was  the  case,  I  re 
member  well,  particularly  with  that  called 
The  Early  Majority  of  Mr.  Thomas  Watts, 
which  perhaps  was  the  most  popular  of  all  my 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON        87 

platform  readings,  although  I  wrote  it  when 
most  heavily  weighed  down  by  a  load  of  appre 
hension.  The  work  did  its  part  in  rescuing 
me  from  entire  despondency.  I  suppose  that 
many  writers  of  humorous  tales  have  had  like 
experiences. 


CHAPTER  X 

I  MAY  as  well  give  in  this  connection  a  brief 
account  of  my  business  experience  as  an 
author.  My  first  paid  story,  Mr.  Neelus  Peel 
er's  Conditions,  printed  in  The  Century  (at  that 
time  Scribner's)  magazine,  and  its  half  dozen 
successors  in  that  and  Harper's,  went  with 
most  gratifying  favor.  In  the  year  18 — 
Messrs.  Harper  &  Brother  purchased  from  me, 
for  one  hundred  dollars,  the  nine  stories 
printed  in  The  Southern  Magazine,  for  the  pur 
pose  of  printing  in  their  ' '  Franklin  Square  ' ' 
series,  along  with  several  others  printed  in 
their  magazine  and  Scribner's,  afterwards  The 
Century. 

The  greatest  part  of  the  income  received 
from  my  stories  has  come  from  the  compensa 
tion  paid  by  the  magazines  at  the  time  of  their 
acceptance,  and  from  readings  of  extracts  upon 
platforms.  The  editors  both  of  The  Century 


90  AUTOBIOGRAPHY    OF 

and  Harper's}\a.v&  been  satisfactorily  liberal  in 
the  sums  paid,  and  the  not- very-many  read 
ings  given  by  me  have  been  received  by  the 
public  with  a  favor  very  gratifying. 

My  other  literary  work  has  consisted  mainly 
of  lectures  read  before  classes  of  adults  at 
Peabody  Institute,  and  at  the  Convent  of 
Notre  Dame,  Baltimore.  They  are  about  a 
hundred  in  number.  Twenty  of  these  were 
published  by  the  Bo  wen -Merrill  Company, 
Indianapolis,  in  two  series,  entitled  Studies, 
Literary  and  Social,  and  about  a  dozen  more 
by  D.  H.  McBride  &  Co.,  Akron,  Ohio, 
entitled  Studies  on  English,  French  and  Span 
ish  Literature. 

Some  years  ago  the  Baltimore  Publishing 
Company  printed  for  me  a  work,  entitled  Two 
Grey  Tourists.  This  house  became  insolvent, 
and  the  plates  and  copyright  were  purchased 
(for  what  sum  I  never  knew)  by  P.  F.  Ken 
nedy,  New  York.  Another  work  of  mine, 
Mr.  Billy  Downs  and  His  Likes,  was  printed 
by  Charles  L.  Webster  &  Co.  At  the  sale  of 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON         91 

their  effects  by  the  trustee  appointed  at  their 
failure  in  business,  I  purchased  the  plates, 
which  are  now  in  my  possession.* 

In  conjuction  with  Prof.  William  Hand 
Browne,  of  Johns  Hopkins  University,  I  have 
published  two  other  works,  one  a  Biography 
of  Alexander  H.  Stephens  and  the  other  a  His 
tory  of  English  Literature.  The  latter  has 
been  used  as  a  text-book  in  several  colleges 
and  schools,  and  we  have  gotten  a  small  yearly 
income  from  it. 

In  the  year  1 895  the  thought  which  I  had 
been  revolving  for  a  year  and  more  presented 
itself  distinctly  to  my  mind,  that  I  should 
retire  from  the  sort  of  work  I  had  been  doing, 
and  I  resolved  to  do  so  whenever  I  could  find 
another  occupation.  I  did  not  like  the  idea 
of  continuing  at  story  telling  down  to  the  very 
grave.  Besides,  while  I  was  conscious  of 
little  dereliction  of  understanding  and  inven 
tion  (a  thing,  through  the  kind  forbearance  of 

*EDITOR'S  NOTE. — These  plates  have  recently  been  purchased 
by  The  Neale  Company,  Washington,  and  an  edition  issued 
therefrom  September  i,  1900. 


92  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

the  Creator,  common  to  all  men),  yet  I  felt 
sure  that  such  dereliction,  in  the  natural 
course  of  things,  must  come  and  be  apparent 
ere  long.  I  had  often  thought  of  the  admoni 
tion  in  Philip  James  Baily's  "  Festus,  know 
when  to  die,"  and  I  decided  to  make  applica 
tion  of  it  at  the  earliest  opportunity.  In  this 
frame  of  mind,  I  sought  a  position  under  the 
United  States  Government.  Having  little  or 
no  acquaintance  with  Maryland  politicians, 
after  a  vain  appeal  to  President  Cleveland, 
who,  answering  my  letters  promptly,  referred 
them  to  the  head  of  the  department  (State)  in 
which  I  first  sought  employment,  I  made 
known  my  wishes  to  a  few  old  friends  in 
Georgia .  These  promptly  wrote  to  Hon .  Hoke 
Smith,  urging  him  to  obtain  a  place  for  me. 
He,  whom  I  had  never  known  personally  nor 
even  seen,  yielded  to  the  petitions  of  those 
Georgians  who  were  his  friends  as  well  as 
mine,  and  so,  after  a  brief  stay  in  the  employ 
ment  of  the  Commissioner  of  Labor  and  on  the 
preparation  of  the  Blue  Book,  I  was  placed  in 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON          93 

the  Bureau  of  Education,  with  a  salary  of 
twelve  hundred  dollars.  There  I  have  been 
since  the  first  of  January,  1896,  going  back  and 
forth  every  week  day.  The  diversion  I  feel  to 
have  been  a  benefit,  notwithstanding  the  very 
laborious  work,  which,  notwithstanding  some 
very  kind  admonitions  of  my  chief,  Hon.  Wm. 
T.  Harris,  I  somehow  could  never  feel  that  it 
would  be  quite  fair  to  make  less.  The  first 
ten  weeks  of  my  time  in  the  Bureau  were  given 
to  assisting  in  editing  and  indexing  the  papers 
of  the  Commissioner.  About  the  middle  of 
March  the  latter  suggested  that  I  write  a  paper 
on  early  educational  life  in  my  native  region, 
middle  Georgia,  beginning  with  the  rural 
schools  known  as  "Old  Field."  I  was  to  tell 
of  the  sort  of  teachers,  the  schoolhouses, 
text-books,  manner  of  teaching,  the  sports 
and  games  of  school  children,  of  holidays, 
turnouts,  etc.  To  this  end  I  read  quite  a  num 
ber  of  books  of  school  life,  and  upon  chil 
dren's  sports  in  England,  Japan,  etc.  This 
was  printed  in  the  Commissioner's  report,  and  '\l 


94  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

was  followed  by  another  paper  of  about  equal 
length  in  which  were  told  first  of  boys  and  girls 
out  of  school,  the  rise  of  academies,  the  effort 
to  maintain  a  manual  labor  school,  ending 
with  a  sketch  of  the  State  University. 

Since  the  completion  of  these  papers  I  have 
been  employed  in  synopsizing  educational  re 
ports  of  States  and  cities,  and  in  translating 
from  the  French  articles  mainly  upon  educa 
tional  subjects,  from  such  writings  as  the  Con 
stitution,  I^avoisier,  and  several  others.  With 
in  the  last  eighteen  months,  besides  reviewing 
many  books  upon  the  several  subjects  in  hand, 
I  have  written  for  the  Bureau  near  four  hun 
dred  thousand  words.  The  Commissioner  of 
Education,  who,  besides  being  one  of  the  most 
gifted  and  cultured  of  men,  is  also  one  of 
the  kindest,  and  some  of  his  next  subordi 
nates  have  advised  me  several  times  against 
overworking  myself.  But  when  I  went  into 
the  service  of  the  Government  I  had  the  nat 
ural  desire  of  honorable  men  to  evince  that, 
old  as  I  was,  I  could  do  adequate,  satisfactory 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON        95 

work.  I  felt  that  I  owed  to  the  Government 
six  and  a  half  hours  of  faithful  work,  which 
I  was  in  honor  bound  to  bestow.  Then  some 
how  I  never  could  work  satisfactorily  to  my 
self  without  doing  so  rapidly.  Slow,  deliber 
ate  work  at  any  business  always  seemed  to 
fatigue  me  more  than  rapid .  Not  seldom  have 
I  begun  at  nine  o'clock  and  been  surprised  at 
the  clock's  stroke  of  twelve,  when  I  had  not 
moved  the  while  from  my  chair.  True,  I  some 
times  felt  the  consequences  of  such  confine 
ment  late  in  the  afternoon,  but  have  been  able 
to  go  back  to  work  next  morning  feeling 
refreshed. 

The  diversion  from  long-continued  habi 
tudes  I  feel  has  been  beneficial  to  me.  The 
certainty  of  fortnightly  payment  of  wages, 
small  as  they  are,  has  served  to  keep  my  mind 
comparatively  free  from  anxiety  as  to  income, 
and  the  work  I  have  had  to  do  has  been  com 
paratively  easy  of  quick  dispatch.  Some 
times,  but  only  during  the  summer  months,  I 
have  felt  right  heavily  pressing  the  daily 


96  AUTOBIOGRAPHY    OF 

eighty  miles  travel  between  Washington  and 
Baltimore,  particularly  on  the  return  in  after 
noons.  But  the  Government's  liberal  allow 
ance  of  vacation  with  continuance  of  pay 
seem  to  give  nearly  all  the  recreation  I  have 
seemed  to  need. 

In  some  points  life  in  one  of  the  Depart 
ments  in  Washington  has  been  interesting. 
When  I  first  became  engaged  on  the  Blue  Book, 
my  desk  being  in  the  Patent  Office,  I  began  a 
diary,  which  I  kept  for  about  a  week,  and  then 
stopped,  deciding  that  although  several  things 
coming  under  my  observation  were  interesting 
to  me,  they  were  too  inconsiderable  in  them 
selves  to  be  favorably  written  down,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  fatigue. 

In  so  far  as  daily  official  life  is  concerned, 
that  in  the  Bureau  of  Education,  so  far  as  I 
have  seen  it,  and  heard  of  other  Departments, 
is  most  exceptional  in  that  particular.  Dr. 
Harris  is  a  noble  exemplar  of  what  a  high 
Government  officer  may  be  to  his  subordi 
nates.  While  he  is  exacting  of  faithful  work, 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON        97 

it  is  within  the  limits  of  reason.  He  trusts 
to  his  employees  to  do  their  work  well ,  and 
privately  and  kindly  chides  them  when  they 
are  remiss.  His  invariable  courtesy  has  made 
him  not  only  respected,  but  to  a  degree  loved. 
I  venture  to  express  the  belief  that  in  no  other 
branch  of  the  public  service  is  done  more  com 
petent  and  cheerful  work. 

Since  I  have  been  in  this  employment,  I 
have  been  reminded  several  times,  and  in  a 
rather  ludicrous  way,  that  a  man,  no  matter 
how  old  he  is,  will  continue  in  some  things  to 
be  a  boy.  While  I  have  been  frequently 
assured  that  the  work  I  have  done  has  been 
even  more  than  satisfactory,  and  been  admon 
ished  against  too  constant  devotion  to  it,  yet, 
most  unexpectedly,  there  have  been  occasions 
whereon  I  have  had  thoughts  akin  to  those  I 
used  to  feel  when  a  boy  at  school.  Never 
having  been,  since  my  school  and  college 
day,  under  the  surveillance  of  any,  I  have 
been  occasionally  surprised  to  the  degree  that 
has  caused  me  to  laugh  at  myself  at  my 


98  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 

own  embarrassment  on  occasions  when  the 
Commissioner  coming  into  the  room  unex 
pectedly  has  found  me  idle,  and  perhaps  tell 
ing  my  colleagues  of  some  ludicrous  story.  I 
suspected  from  his  smiling  that  he  saw  and 
was  amused  by  the  quick  alteration  in  my  face 
and  voice.  Smaller  and  less  humane  officials 
would  have  been  pleased  with  that  instance  of 
what  is  due  to  official  superiority.  It  reminded 
me,  yet  with  no  pain  or  sense  of  abasement,  of 
my  young  time  when,  as  I  easily  recalled,  I 
was  always  the  easiest  boy  in  school  to  be 
caught  at  laughing  out  or  other  pranks,  from 
never  finding  out  how  to  dodge  detection. 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON         99 


CHAPTER  XI 

DURING  my  life  I  have  become  acquainted, 
and  more  or  less  familiar,  with  some  characters 
in  several  ways  interesting.  I  have  already 
spoken  of  those  teachers  from  New  England 
who  acquired  high  distinction  in  their  voca 
tions,  both  as  teachers  and  divines.  The  influ 
ence  wrought  by  them  was  rapid,  and  in  most 
respects  highly  salutary.  Perhaps  they  were 
too  rigid  in  their  teaching  of  the  uselessness  of 
observance  of  such  holidays  as  before  their 
coming  had  been  recognized  as  becoming,  and 
indeed  due  to  the  source  of  their  establishment, 
such  as  Good  Friday,  Easter  week,  Whitsun 
tide  and  others  theretofore  regarded  as  even  of 
religious  obligation,  by  the  most  cultured  in 
the  communities  wherein  they  settled.  It  was 
not  difficult  with  a  simple-minded  people  to 
eradicate  what  recollections  they  had  of  the 
pious  observance  of  those  days.  When  I  was 


100  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

a  little  child  I  was  aware,  as  were  even  our 
negroes,  of  their  recurrence,  although  there 
was  pious  observance  only  in  a  very  few  fami 
lies.  The  young  and  the  workers  accepted 
the  holidays  with  thanks,  and  spent  them  in 
repose,  or  in  hunting  and  other  sports.  By 
the  time  I  was  eighteen,  the  meaning  and  the 
recollection  of  them  had  gone  from  nearly  all 
minds  and  their  observance  had  entirely  ceased. 
Among  the  men  in  prominent  careers  in  my 
native  region  were  some  of  marked  ability. 
William  H.  Crawford,  becoming  early  super 
annuated  by  paralysis,  which  prevented  his 
being  President  of  the  United  States,  was  re 
tired  ;  and  Joseph  Henry  L,umpkin,  the  greatest 
orator  of  his  time,  was  forced,  from  a  serious 
affection  of  his  throat,  in  the  midst  of  his 
prime,  to  leave  the  bar,  and  take  the  Chief 
Justiceship  of  the  Superior  Court,  which  had 
lately  been  created.  When  I  came  into  the 
profession  in  1843  the  bar,  in  the  Northern 
Circuit  especially,  had  a  considerable  number 
of  lawyers  of  very  great  ability.  With  these 


CO!,.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON      IOI 

were  joined  several  from  the  two  adjoining 
circuits,  the  Middle  and  the  Ocmulgee.  In 
that  rural  region  leading  lawyers  were  wont  to 
travel  outside  of  their  circuits  in  order  to  get 
full  employment  of  their  time  and  adequate 
compensation  for  their  professional  acquire 
ments.  Francis  H.  Cone,  William  C.  Dawson, 
Iverson  L.  Harris,  from  the  Ocmulgee,  habit 
ually;  Charles  Jenkins,  Andrew  Miller,  and 
W.  V.  Johnson,  from  the  Middle,  occasionally 
attended  our  courts .  Noteworthy  was  the  high 
standard  of  professional  honor  among  the 
leaders  of  the  bar  of  that  generation.  To 
a  degree  they  were  in  some  respects,  even 
more  than  clergymen,  conservators  of  public 
tranquillity  and  social  business  fair  dealing. 
In  general,  litigant  parties  were  counseled 
fairly,  and  persuaded  to  submit  to  proposals 
from  each  other  that  seemed  to  be  reasonable 
compromises.  In  the  trial  of  issues  before  the 
courts,  while  counsel  were  not  oblivious  of 
what  was  due  to  their  opponents  and  to  the 
main  requirements  of  justice,  yet  the  struggles 


102  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

before  the  court  and  before  jurors  were  often 
extremely  interesting  to  witness.  In  the  last 
of  a  supreme  tribunal  for  correction  of  errors 
of  courts  of  Nisi  Prius,  issues  of  law  were  of 
constant  recurrence  because  of  never  having 
been  definitely  ascertained  and  authoritatively 
settled.  Adjudications  in  one  circuit  were 
often  different  from  those  in  another,  accord 
ing  to  the  difference  in  understanding  and 
temper  among  presiding  judges.  Then,  also,  a 
judge  in  one  circuit  was  sometimes  led  to  over 
rate  his  own  decisions  after  subsequent  study 
and  reflections  or  the  overwhelming  argument 
of  some  very  great  lawyer.  Thus  it  was  that 
the  very  incertitude  in  the  laws  and  in  the  rul 
ings  of  different  incumbents  of  the  bench  and 
in  their  own  individuality  served  to  evoke  the 
greatest  endeavors  of  counsel.  Some  of  the 
very  ablest,  most  eloquent  addresses  were  often 
made  upon  issues  wherein  the  amount  of  money 
in  dispute  was  not  more  than  a  few  hundred 
dollars.  Three  or  four  thousand  dollars  was 
a  large  incotne  to  a  lawyer  in  a  circuit  of  eight 


COI,.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON      103 

or  nine  agricultural  counties,  holding  two 
court  sessions,  averaging  about  five  days  each 
in  the  year.  No  lawyer  had  ever  been  known 
to  grow  rich  from  the  proceeds  of  his  practice. 
A  large  fee  was  a  rarity,  because  the  wealthiest 
farmers  generally  chose  to  adjust  serious  differ 
ences  by  arbitration  of  common  friends  rather 
than  resort  to  the  law,  whose  uncertainties 
were  well  known  to  them,  and  whose  frequent 
long  delays  they  revolted  from  enduring. 

In  such  a  state  of  things  it  was  always  an 
advantage  in  jury  trials  for  a  lawyer  to  get  the 
concluding  address  before  jurors.  The  rules 
of  court  assigned  that  to  the  plaintiff,  except 
in  cases  where  the  defendant  introduced  no  evi 
dence.  Very  often  it  occurred  that  the  latter 's 
counsel  forbore  from  such  introduction  for  the 
sake  of  concluding  the  argument  before  the 
jury. 

Yet  able  and  adroit  counsel  learned  acts  to 
avoid  some  of  the  consequences  of  lack  of  this 
advantage.  Judge  William  M.  Reese  told  me 
one  day  of  a  case  of  this  sort  occurring  between 


IO4  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

Alexander  Stephens  and  Joseph  Henry  Lump- 
kin  in  Wilkes  County.  L,umpkin  was  a  lawyer 
who  owed  much  of  his  success  to  the  warm, 
often  passionate  interest  that  it  was  in  his  im 
pulsive,  generous  nature  to  feel  in  the  cause  of 
his  clients.  It  often  seemed  that  he  emerged 
from  his  own  personality  and  became  the  client 
who  was  appealing  for  justice  or  (in  criminal 
cases)  for  mercy .  The  case  referred  to  involved 
an  inconsiderable  sum,  but  much  feeling  be 
tween  two  respectable  citizens  of  the  county. 
From  the  opening  and  throughout  the  exami 
nation  of  testimony,  Lumpkin  evinced  deep 
concern  for  his  client,  whom  he  had  long 
known  personally,  and  much  liked.  Stephens, 
then  young,  but  rising  rapidly  in  his  profes 
sion,  noting  this,  resolved  how  he  could  man 
age  in  the  circumstance  of  Lumpkin  having 
the  conclusion.  Passionate  himself,  he  knew 
how  to  keep  himself,  or,  at  least,  seem  to  keep 
himself,  entirely  cool .  Bye  witnesses  expected 
a  highly  animated  combat  between  the  great 
advocate  and  the  younger,  who  had  been  show- 


COL,.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON       105 

ing  promise  of  the  high  career  he  was  destined 
to  make.  They  were  strangely  disappointed. 
When  the  case  went  to  the  jury,  Stephens,  in 
words  and  tones  almost  entirely  conversational, 
referred  to  the  unfortunate  controversy  between 
two  gentlemen  of  the  county  equally  respecta 
ble,  alike  honorable,  intending  to  be  to  each 
other  just.  In  the  same  tone  he  reviewed  the 
testimony,  and  while  admitting  that  the  jury, 
fair-minded  men,  might  have  some  difficulty 
in  adjusting  a  dispute  that,  at  least,  was  of 
quite  inconsiderable  pecuniary  or  other  im 
portance,  he  could  not  but  trust  that  the  bal 
ance,  so  nearly  equal,  would  be  found  by  them 
to  weigh  upon  the  side  of  his  client.  I^ump- 
kin,  one  of  the  most  open  of  men,  evinced  dis 
appointment.  A  greater  part  of  his  feeling 
subsided  before  an  adversary  who  had  parted 
from  all  his  own,  and  was,  perhaps,  restrained 
to  a  degree  little  above  his.  Stephens,  who 
(if  my  recollection  does  not  fail  me)  prevailed, 
being  told  afterwards  by  some  of  the  bar  of 
their  surprise  at  the  little  excitement  mani- 


106  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

fested  by  him,  answered,  laughing,  ' '  I  saw  that 
Colonel  lyumpkin  was  intensely  excited,  there 
fore  I  resolved  to  keep  myself  as  calm  as  pos 
sible,  although  my  feeling  was  as  high  as  his  ; 
for  if  I  had  given  full  expression  to  it,  it  would 
have  excited  him  still  higher,  and  having  the 
conclusion  on  me,  he  would  have  torn  to  pieces 
me  and  my  case." 

Another  instance  was  told  me  by  Linton 
Stephens,  who,  when  just  after  coming  to  the 
bar,  was  eye  witness  to  a  trial  in  Milbysville 
in  which  L,umpkin  and  the  elder  Colquitt 
were  of  counsel.  It  was  for  murder.  Two 
lads  of  fourteen  or  thereabouts,  sons  of  two  of 
the  leading  citizens  of  the  town,  falling  into  a 
dispute  one  day  when,  with  several  of  their 
school-fellows,  they  were  engaged  in  bathing 
in  a  swimming  hole,  one  of  them,  seizing  his 
knife,  slew  the  other.  The  father  of  the 
deceased  prosecuted  the  slayer,  employing 
Walter  T.  Colquitt.  Colonel  Lumpkin  was 
engaged  for  the  defense ;  for  indeed  he  would 
not  serve  as  counsel  for  the  State  in  cases 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON      107 

involving  life.  Colquitt  was  a  very  interest 
ing  man.  Neither  a  very  learned  lawyer  nor 
a  close  student  of  questions  of  State,  yet  he 
was  an  eloquent,  successful  practitioner  at  the 
bar,  and  on  the  stump  or  in  the  United  States 
Senate  could  hold  his  own  with  the  foremost, 
being  possessed  of  a  fiery  temper  and  of  a  fund 
of  partisan  words  which  served  to  compensate 
far  for  his  lack  of  large  information.  Indeed, 
when  in  his  prime  no  man  in  the  State  was 
more  than  a  match  for  him  in  debate.  He 
was  known  to  be  thoroughly  upright  in  prin 
ciple,  and  this  knowledge  made  amends  for 
some  eccentricities  that  in  another  might  be 
liable  to  censure.  While  at  the  bar  he  be 
came  a  member  of  the  Methodist  Church,  and 
almost  immediately  afterwards  felt  it  his  duty 
to  include  preaching  along  with  his  main 
vocation.  Brave  to  the  extreme  degree,  he 
was  as  combative,  even  after  he  became  a 
judge  and  a  divine.  The  following  anecdote 
was  told  of  him  while  serving  as  judge  of  the 
Chattahoochee  circuit,  in  which  (in  the  city 


108  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

of  Columbus)  he  resided.  Late  one  night  on 
returning  from  the  church  in  company  with 
Several  members  of  the  bar,  he  recited  with  a 
smile,  yet  not  without  sign  of  regret,  some  of 
his  actions  during  the  day.  His  words  were 
these:  "  Well,  well !  I've  had  a  rather  curi 
ous  and  varied  experience  to-day.  I  held 
court  the  forenoon,  in  the  interval  for  dinner 
made  a  political  speech  in  the  court-house 
square,  held  court  in  the  afternoon,  after 
adjournment  whipped  a  Whig  who  had  made 
insulting  remarks  in  my  presence  about  my 
noon  speech,  and  preached  to-night." 

He  had  been  an  ardent  supporter  of  President 
Jackson,  and  in  1840,  when  the  majority  of 
the  Georgia  delegation  went  to  General  Har 
rison,  he,  with  A.  Cooper  and  Edward  J. 
Black,  adhered  to  Van  Buren.  In  the  cam 
paign  of  1844  he  was  easily  in  the  lead  of  the 
Democratic  party  in  the  State  in  the  support 
of  James  K.  Polk  against  Henry  Clay.  The 
first  and  only  time  that  I  ever  heard  or  saw 
him  was  at  the  Democratic  mass-meeting  at 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON      log 

Macon  in  August,  1844.  It  was  intensely 
interesting  to  note  how  for  two  hours  he 
thrilled  that  vast  multitude  assembled  in  one 
of  the  warehouses. 

To  return  to  the  trial  in  Milbysville.  He 
and  L,umpkin  had  been  acquaintances  and 
friends  since  the  years  when  they  were  in 
college  together.  Apart  in  politics,  yet  there 
was  respect  and  friendship  between  them.  In 
the  trial  at  Milbysville,  the  State,  as  in  all 
cases,  whether  the  accused  does  or  does  not 
introduce  evidence,  has  the  conclusion  in  the 
argument  before  the  jury.  L,umpkin ,  as 
Stephens  had  done  with  him  in  Wilkes,  re 
solved  as  best  he  could  to  lessen  the  fierceness 
of  attack  on  the  part  of  his  adversary.  In 
criminal  cases,  juries,  by  the  laws  of  the  State, 
were  made  judges  of  the  law  as  well  as  the 
facts.  Charges  from  the  bench,  therefore, 
necessarily  had  less  weight  than  in  civil  suits. 
When  the  issue  in  this  case,  at  the  close  of 
the  testimony  on  both  sides,  was  to  be  sub 
mitted  by  counsel  to  the  jury,  Lumpkin,  after 


IIO  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

an  exhausting  sifting  of  the  facts,  and  a  gen 
eral  pathetic  appeal  in  behalf  of  the  boy,  who, 
in  a  moment  of  passion,  had  slain  his  school 
fellow,  paused  for  a  brief  while,  and  looking 
at  Colquitt,  seemed  to  be  resolving  what  was 
most  fit  and  becoming  to  say.  Then  he  made 
a  peroration  that  L,inton  Stephens  declared  to 
be  a  masterpiece  of  its  kind.  Many  of  its 
words  he  remembered,  as  I  remember  them 
from  his  recital.  Some  of  them  were  as  fol 
lows:  "Gentlemen  of  the  jury — I  am  to  be 
followed  in  this  discussion  by  a  man  whom  I 
have  known  from  our  boyhood.  Walter  Col 
quitt,  even  when  a  boy,  was  well  known  for 
adherence  to  the  principle  of  his  conviction, 
for  intrepid  defense  of  them,  and  readiness  to 
incur  all  risks  in  their  maintenance.  As  ready 
for  fight  as  for  argument  if  his  adversary  so 
chose,  there  was  ever  little  delay  between  the 
provocation  and  the  conflict.  But,  gentle 
men,  Walter  Colquitt  was  one  who  wanted  a 
peer  or  a  superior  for  his  adversary.  He  was 
never  one  to  contend  with  a  weakling  of  any 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON      1 1 1 

degree.  When  a  boy,  he  fought  with  boys 
his  equal  or  his  elder.  Grown  to  be  a  man, 
his  fights  have  been  with  men,  never  more 
with  boys.  This  chevalier  among  men  has 
never  combatted  with  those  who  were  not  in 
all  respects  able  to  strike  back  with  the  strength 
of  a  man.  To-day  to  find  himself  unequally 
matched,  the  great,  eloquent,  powerful  law 
yer,  with  yonder  stripling  sitting  silent,  yet 
silently  appealing  for  forgiveness  of  a  vast  act 
done  without  premeditation  or  malice,  which 
from  his  heart  he  regrets,  and  he  will  ever 
regret  more  sorely  than  all  others.  Walter 
Colquitt  will  find  such  a  combat  unfit  for  the 
prowess  of  the  man  that  he  is,  and  you  will 
find  that  vain  will  be  his  efforts  to  main 
tain  it." 

The  effect  of  these  words,  according  to  Lin- 
ton  Stephens,  was  most  apparent.  Colquitt 
must  acquit  himself  of  the  professional  obliga 
tion  assumed  by  him,  but  throughout  his 
address  he  evinced,  as  his  opponent  predicted, 
his  sense  of  the  inequality  of  the  combat,  and 


112  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

subdued  most  of  the  fire  of  his  assaults.  The 
lad  was  easily  acquitted,  even  of  manslaughter. 
The  northern  circuit  may  well  claim  Col- 
quitt,  as  his  childhood  and  early  manhood 
were  spent  in  Hancock  County.  The  family 
afterwards  removed,  first  to  Monroe,  then  to 
Columbus. 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON      113 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  two  lawyers  who  easily  led  at  the  bar 
of  the  northern  circuit  during  the  whole 
course  of  their  practice  were  Robert  Toombs 
and  Alexander  Stephens.  Of  about  equal 
age,  the  former  only  one  year  older,  they  at 
their  coming  out  almost  at  once  became  dis 
tinguished,  and  although  professional  rivals 
were  dear  friends  throughout  life,  with  the 
exception  of  a  brief  while,  due  to  a  misunder 
standing,  after  the  passage  of  which  they  were 
the  same  to  each  other  as  before. 

Toombs,  who  was  generous  to  the  highest 
degree,  having  inherited  an  ample  property, 
was  attracted  to  Stephens,  who,  despite  both 
poverty  and  weak  health,  was  struggling  with 
increasing  pertinacity  towards  the  height  for 
which  he  felt  to  be  competent,  if  life  was  spared 
to  reach.  At  one  of  the  towns  of  Taliaferro 
Court,  his  home,  Stephens  becoming  obliged 


114  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

by  ill  health  to  absent  himself,  Toombs  put 
himself  promptly  into  all  his  cases,  so  as  to 
prevent  harm  from  falling  upon  his  clients  by 
their  continuance.  It  was  always  pleasant  to 
witness  the  warm  attachment  between  them. 
Both  were  men  of  ardent  temper;  Stephens 
naturally  irate  and  resentful,  and  both  fired 
with  high  ambition.  It  was  evident  that  they 
avoided  as  much  as  possible  being  put  into 
conflict  before  the  courts,  and  that  when  this 
was  unavoidable,  each  was  careful  of  touch 
ing  unpleasantly  the  other's  feelings. 

In  my  judgment,  Toombs  possessed  an  intel 
lect  above  that  of  any  other  man  with  whom  I 
ever  had  acquaintance.  He  became  a  learned 
lawyer.  It  was  not  known,  except  to  a  few, 
that,  despite  all  appearances  to  the  contrary, 
he  was  a  deep  student,  having  capacity  far  be 
yond  any  other  lawyer  of  his  day  for  rapid, 
intense  study  during  the  interstices  of  public 
business  and  the  claims  of  domestic  and  social 
life,  the  latter  never  being  neglected.  In  read 
ing  cases  found  in  law  reports  he  had  the  fac- 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON      115 

ulty  of  quickly  noting  the  points  involved, 
decisions  upon  them,  and  the  reasons  as 
signed.  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson,  who  almost 
never  read  a  book  through,  was  not  more 
prompt  and  accurate  to  discover  what  was  val 
uable  in  it .  At  village  taverns  during  the  week 
sessions  of  the  spring  and  fall  terms,  either  in 
the  big  hall  then  called  the  bar-room,  or  in  his 
own  and  other  chambers,  his  habit  was  to  spend 
hours  in  chit-chat,  in  which  were  had  some  of 
as  racy  rehearsings  of  anecdotes  and  other 
stories  as  were  held  in  such  reunions  any 
where.  At  bedtime,  on  his  retiring,  he  would 
spend  several  hours  studying  his  cases  and  re 
ports  in  which  their  likes  had  been  adjudi 
cated.  It  was  so  in  his  office  and  on  the  court 
house  square  in  Washington,  where  he  resided. 
Interviews  with  clients,  that  is  to  say,  business 
interviews,  were  brief.  Quickly  perceiving 
the  points  involved  in  their  cases,  his  counsel 
followed  at  once,  and  then  either  there,  or 
upon  the  street,  sitting  before  the  door  of  one 
of  the  stores,  he  would  chat  about  crops  and 


Il6  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

other  rural  things  of  interest,  and  yet  find 
time  for  study,  sufficient  for  the  unexampled 
rapidity  with  which  he  could  pursue  it. 

He  was  the  only  eminent  lawyer  who  made 
agriculture  one  of  his  studies  to  the  degree  that 
he  made  money  by  its  pursuit.  With  the 
others  this  and  practice  at  the  bar  seemed  not 
well  to  coincide,  and  so  not  many  of  them 
worked  farms,  except  on  an  inconsiderable 
scale.  Yet  Toombs  held  frequent  communi 
cations  with  overseers  on  his  plantations,  one 
of  which  was  in  Stewart  County,  near  one 
hundred  and  fifty  miles  distant,  sending  to  the 
manager  there  and  receiving  weekly  bulletins. 
In  a  conversation  with  him  one  day  he  said  to 
me  that  in  the  matter  of  overseers  he  always 
avoided  selection  of  one  with  other  than  a 
moderate,  even  tending  to  low,  understanding. 
He  spoke  about  thus:  "I  wouldn't  have  on 
one  of  my  plantations  an  overseer  who  believed 
himself  competent  to  run  it  on  his  own  judg 
ment.  What  I  want  in  an  overseer  is  for  him, 
besides  understanding  what  is  good  work  and 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON     117 

how  it  is  to  be  done,  to  have  just  sense  enough 
to  do  implicitly  what  I  tell  him  I  wish  done. 
He  must  write  me  once  a  week  the  condition 
of  things  and  their  various  accidents.  Then  I 
write,  giving  instructions  of  what  he  must  do. 
In  seasons,  wet  and  dry,  I  instruct  him  how  to 
have  the  work  distributed.  If  a  mule  is  sick 
or  dies,  I  make  the  changes  needed.  In  fine, 
I  manage  my  plantations  myself."  It  was 
thus  that  he  became  acquainted  with  even  the 
lesser  matters  in  agricultural  life,  and  suc 
ceeded  in  making  good  yearly  accretions  to  his 
estate. 

As  an  advocate  before  juries  he  was  without 
a  peer.  Powerful  before  the  court,  before 
which  his  arguments  were  always  brief,  he  was 
almost  resistless,  What,  to  a  high  degree,  had 
contributed  to  this  was  the  conviction  usually 
felt  that  the  cause  of  his  clients  was  just  and 
ought  to  prevail.  Recognizing  on  their  first 
presentation  the  law  and  the  right,  unless  those, 
in  his  opinion,  were  in  their  favor,  his  habit 
was  to  counsel  against  litigation,  that  after 


Il8  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

being  conducted  in  anxiety  and  acrimony 
would  end  in  failure.  There  was  not  his  equal 
in  readiness  to  accept  what  he  regarded  fair 
proposals  of  compromises  from  the  opponents 
of  his  clients.  If  the  latter,  moved  by  com 
bative  feelings,  or  eager  to  strive  for  more  than 
their  cases  could  justly  claim,  rejected  such 
proposals,  he  would  promptly  declare  that  if 
they  persisted  he  would  sever  his  connection 
with  them,  saying,  in  his  open  manner :  ' '  The 
terms  are  fair ;  if  you  won't  agree  to  them  get 
somebody  else  to  plead  your  case.  I  go  out  of 
it,  for  I  will  not  be  the  instrument  either  of 
your  resentment  or  your  greed." 

Thus  it  was  that  before  a  jury  he  felt  him 
self  to  be  in  a  just  cause  and  bound  at  all  points 
for  its  lead.  His  examinations,  especially 
cross-examinations  of  witnesses,  always  seemed 
to  me  perfect.  The  truth,  whatever  of  it  was 
in  a  witness'  mind,  he  would  have.  One  who 
was  prejudiced  or  reluctant  he  comprehended 
at  once.  Placing  himself  close  to  a  witness- 
stand,  and  fixing  his  eyes  upon  him,  he  plied 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON      119 

him  in  a  wise  that  was  irresistible.  One  day 
such  a  witness  in  Taliaferro  Court,  before  his 
searching,  fainted  and  fell  upon  the  floor. 
' '  Take  him  out ! ' '  cried  Toombs ;  ' '  his  travail 
in  the  forced  letting  out  of  what  was  in  him 
has  been  too  much  for  him ;  take  him  out ! ' ' 

When  the  issue  was  to  be  argued,  it  was  sin 
gular  what  disregard  he  had  for  mere  acts  of 
speech .  With  him  these  seemed  to  be  counted 
as  of  little  value.  He  did  not  undertake  to 
persuade.  His  aim  and  his  labor  were  to  con 
vince.  He  forbore  from  praise  of  juries  for 
their  intelligence  and  honorable  intents  and 
purposes.  In  rapid  and  always  brief  speech  he 
commented  upon  the  facts,  making  the  jury- 
understand  that  he  relied  for  a  verdict  upon 
their  being  fair-minded,  honest  men,  whom  he 
virtually  defied  to  act  against  justice  and  their 
consciences.  In  not  one  of  the  many  addresses 
before  juries  that  I  have  heard  him  make  do  I 
recall  an  instance  in  which  he  employed  words 
or  tones  of  flattery.  He  not  often  spoke  more 
than  half  an  hour.  Ignoring  all  side  or  un- 


I2O  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

important  issues,  lie  seized  upon  the  one  or  two 
strong  points  of  the  case  until  he  had  made  it 
absolutely  clear,  and  when  this  was  done  he 
turned  away  with  the  looks  of  one  who,  hav 
ing  discharged  his  own  portion  of  responsi 
bility,  had  left  it  with  those  whose  final  deci 
sion  would  depend  upon  the  question  of  whether 
they  were  intelligent  men  or  fools,  honest  men 
or  knaves.  Yet,  except  L,umpkin,  no  lawyer 
of  his  time  equaled  him  in  excitation  of  pathos 
in  juries,  but  he  did  so  by  no  appealings,  but 
by  the  presentation  of  a  case  of  injustice  and 
oppression  with  such  force  as  occasionally 
moved  to  pity  and  indignation,  finding  vent  in 
tears,  even  in  cries.  A  case  of  this  sort  was 
related  to  me  by  L,inton  Stephens,  at  Athens, 
shortly  after  I  had  withdrawn  from  the  bar  and 
entered  the  University.  It  was  in  a  suit  for 
damages,  brought  by  a  young  girl,  through  her 
relations  and  friends,  against  a  Baptist  clergy 
man.  I  well  remembered  its  frequent  calls 
upon  the  docket  for  years,  and  its  as  many 
continuances,  for  one  cause  and  another,  by 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON      121 

the  defendant,  who  stood  in  much  dread  of  the 
influence  of  Toombs's  invectives,  which  he 
foresaw.  It  was  the  habit  of  both  the  latter 
and  Stephens  to  leave  their  seats  in  Congress 
during  the  spring  and  fall  sessions  of  the  courts. 
Toombs  made  it  a  special  matter  to  be  present 
at  the  call  of  this  particular  case.  I  was  pres 
ent  at  one  of  the  continuances,  and  as  the  de 
fendant,  after  succeeding  in  his  motion,  was 
leaving  the  bar,  scowling  upon  him  he  said,  in 
words  audible  to  several  around  him :  ' '  You 
may  dodge,  you  old  reprobate,  but  I  shall  get 
to  you  at  last." 

The  plaintiff,  an  orphan  girl  of  sixteen  or 
seventeen  years,  was  a  ward  of  the  defendant. 
She  was  of  rather  weak  understanding,  and 
perhaps  slow  in  rendering  service  such  as  her 
guardian  deemed  it  his  right  and  duty  to  exact. 
One  day  (my  recollection  is)  she  mislaid  a 
bunch  of  keys  where  it  could  not  be  found.  The 
defendant,  suddenly  exasperated  with  anger, 
seized  a  hickory  and  punished  her  with  some 
severity .  The  girl 's  relations ,  indignant  at  the 


122  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

outrage,  withdrew  her  and  instituted  suit,  lay 
ing  the  damages  of  two  thousand  five  hundred 
dollars.  More  than  once,  through  her  friends, 
she  offered  to  compromise  on  the  payment  of 
fifteen  hundred.  The  offer  was  rejected,  for 
the  defendant  had  no  notion  that,  even  if  the 
verdict  should  be  rendered  against  him,  the 
damages  would  be  so  great  for  inflicting  a  pun 
ishment  which  in  that  day  and  generation  was 
not  uncommon  in  domestic  life.  When  the 
case  at  last  came  up  for  trial ,  and  after  the  evi 
dence  was  ended,  Toombs,  excited  to  the  high 
est  degree,  stood  before  the  jury  and  delivered 
a  speech,  of  which  Lin  ton  Stephens  declared 
his  opinion  that  it  had  never  been  surpassed  in 
all  the  annals  of  the  bar.  Indeed,  an  intelli 
gent  gentleman,  a  physician  of  the  county,  who 
had  been  a  friend  of  the  defendant,  said  to  me 
afterwards  that  the  effect  of  the  speech  on  all , 
jurymen  and  bystanders,  was  overwhelming. 
The  large  court-room  was  crowded  with  spec 
tators.  These  and  all,  whilst  the  orator  was 
declaiming  upon  the  audacity  of  a  large,  pow- 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON      123 

erful  man ,  a  professed  minister  of  the  Word  ol 
God,  inflicting  a  disgraceful  penance  upon  a 
weak,  orphaned  girl  for  a  trifling  offense — an 
outrage  from  the  sight  of  which  even  the 
Creator,  whom  he  pretended  to  serve,  must 
have  turned  away  in  horror — bowed  their  heads 
in  their  hands  and  cried  aloud.  The  speech 
was  brief.  When  it  was  over,  the  jury  rushed 
to  their  room  as  if  they  felt  that  instantaneous 
recompense  must  be  rendered — even  for  their 
own  security  against  charge  or  suspicion  of 
complicity — wrote  out  their  verdict,  rushed 
back,  and  their  foreman  handed  it  to  the  clerk, 
who  read  in  a  loud  voice  the  finding  to  be  five 
thousand  dollars .  Half  of  this  sum ,  as  all  law 
yers  know,  must  have  been  recouped,  but  for 
the  following  noteworthy  circumstance.  At 
one  of  the  continuances  made  by  the  defend 
ant  the  showing  was  loss  of  the  original  writ, 
which,  as  has  been  seen,  laid  the  damages  at 
two  thousand  five  hundred  dollars .  In  making 
out  what  in  the  law  is  styled  an  alias,  Toombs, 
who  wrote  it,  being  fully  convinced  that  one 


124  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

of  the  local  counsel  had  purposely  withdrawn 
and  hidden  the  original,  raised  the  figures  to 
five  thousand.  The  physician  above  alluded 
to  told  me  that  after  the  verdict  was  rendered 
one  of  the  defendant's  counsel,  intending  to 
reassure  him,  told  him  that  he  need  not  be 
distressed,  for  there  was  no  doubt  of  being 
able  to  obtain  a  new  trial,  by  writ  of  error  to 
the  Supreme  Court,  he,  lifting  his  hand,  an 
swered  :  ' '  No !  I  never  want  to  hear  anything 
of  it  again,  the  good  Lord  knows  I  don't ! ' ' 

Toombs'  career  as  a  member  of  Congress  is 
generally  well  known.  At  the  dissolution  of 
the  Whig  party,  and  the  overthrow  of  the 
Know  Nothing,  he  became  allied  to  the  Demo 
cratic,  and  was  among  the  foremost  among 
the  leaders  in  opposition  to  the  measures  event 
ually  leading  to  the  Confederate  war.  Next 
to  Thomas  Cobb  his  was  the  most  powerful 
influence  upon  the  movement  for  secession  by 
the  State. 

For  a  time  there  was  prospect  that  he  would 
be  made  President  of  the  new  Confederacy. 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON      125 

Perhaps  he  would  have  been  but  for  one  of 
those  accidents,  apparently  of  not  serious  im 
portance,  but  that  serve  to  impart  turns  to 
most  serious  undertakings.  At  the  first  Con 
gress  at  Montgomery,  Alabama,  his  name  was 
mentioned  more  often  and  earnestly  than  any 
other  for  leadership.  By  a  singular  mishap, 
Toombs,  on  the  occasion  of  a  party  given  to 
the  members  of  the  new  Congress,  partook  too 
freely  of  wine.  The  most  ardent  and  impul 
sive  of  men,  a  very  little  of  spirituous,  or  even 
vinous,  liquors  served  to  excite  his  brain 
more  highly  than  others  would  have  been  by 
much  larger  potations.  It  is  not  improbable 
that  he  partook  less  freely  than  any  other  at 
the  dinner.  Yet  the  fact  brought  apprehen 
sion  upon  some  of  the  delegates  who  had  been 
among  his  supporters,  and  when  the  name  01 
Jefferson  Davis  was  mentioned  they  reluctantly 
left  him  for  the  latter.  He  had  not  avowed 
himself  a  candidate,  and,  so  far  as  I  have  been 
able  to  find  out,  exhibited  no  signs  of  disap 
pointment. 


126  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

After  the  election  of  Davis  it  was  believed, 
particularly  among  Toombs'  friends,  that  he 
would  be  offered  the  portfolio  which,  under 
the  circumstances,  was  the  most  important  of 
the  Cabinet,  that  of  Minister  of  War.  But 
the  President,  declaring  the  while  that  he 
regarded  himself  bound  to  offer  the  highest, 
appointed  him  Secretary  of  State.  Toombs, 
feeling  that  this  was  not  only  an  empty  but 
an  insincere  compliment,  at  first  declined, 
but,  at  the  instance  of  Stephens,  afterwards 
accepted  it. 

In  this  position  there  was  simply  nothing 
to  do,  nor  would  be  until  (what  was  not  likely) 
one  or  more  foreign  powers  would  recognize 
the  new  nation .  Toombs  used  to  say  humor 
ously,  "  I  hold  myself  ready  to  be  as  polite 
and  hospitable  as  I  know  how  to  my  neigh 
bors,  but  not  one  of  them  will  even  speak  to 
me." 

Assured  in  his  own  mind  that  the  President 
had  assigned  him  to  this  position  in  order  to 
neutralize  any  efforts  that  he  might  make  to 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON       127 

interfere  with  his  own  policy,  Toombs  after 
some  months  resigned  and  was  made  a  brig 
adier-general. 

It  was  easy  to  foresee  that  a  man  of  con 
summate  genius,  ardent,  open  as  the  day, 
would  be  hampered  in  a  situation  so  far  sub 
ordinate  to  those  who  were  for  the  most  part 
his  unequals.  Soon  detecting  the  weak  points 
in  the  administration,  and  never  having  learned 
how  to  refrain  from  expression  of  his  opinions, 
the  coldness  between  him  and  the  President 
became  constantly  more  pronounced,  until  he 
retired  from  the  army  altogether.  Long  be 
fore  the  end  of  the  war  he  felt  that  the  cause 
of  the  South,  under  existing  plans  and  pur 
poses  of  the  administration,  must  fail.  One 
day  when  a  man  asked  him  about  the  con 
dition  of  the  public  finances,  he  answered: 
"Oh,  they  seem  to  be  getting  along  swim 
mingly.  The  officials  charged  with  the  manu 
facture  of  money  spend  every  day  in  grinding 
it  out  for  the  government,  and  all  night  for 
themselves." 


128  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

When  the  war  ended  he  resolved,  if  possi 
ble,  to  avoid  arrest;  and  so  one  day,  when 
notified  by  one  of  his  neighbors  that  a  squad 
of  cavalry  had  just  come  into  the  town  of 
Washington,  where  he  resided,  he  retired  to 
the  back  portion  of  his  premises,  and  mount 
ing  his  good  mare,  Alice,  he  escaped  the 
comers,  who  shortly  afterwards  repaired  to 
his  house.  Of  his  wanderings,  if  he  had  so 
chosen,  he  could  have  told  some  interesting 
things.  Failing  in  his  efforts  to  get  out  of 
the  country  through  the  west,  he  turned  to  the 
south.  Two  of  my  neighbors,  Col.  A.  J. 
Lane  and  Major  Edgworth  Bird,  and  myself 
were  his  escort  during  portions  of  the  nights 
in  both  of  these  endeavors.  Our  residences 
were  two  or  three  miles  from  the  village  of 
Sparta  (where  was  a  squad  of  Federal  soldiers 
under  command  of  a  lieutenant) ,  mine  on  the 
north,  and  my  neighbor's  on  the  south  of 
the  road  leading  towards  Augusta.  Receiv 
ing  word  one  night  from  Colonel  Lane  that 
the  fugitive  was  a  second  time  in  a  pine 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON      129 

thicket  near  his  house,  I  mounted  my  horse 
and  went  thither,  and  we  and  Major  Bird 
escorted  him  through  my  plantation  to  the 
road  leading  northwardly  and  for  some  miles 
thereon.  I  remember  well  that  as  we  crossed 
the  road  from  Colonel  Lane's,  Toombs,  taking 
off  his  hat,  waved  and  uttered  his  respects  to 
the  lieutenant  commanding  in  the  town.  He 
was  accompanied  by  Charles  Irwin,  a  youth, 
son  of  his  dearly  beloved  friend,  Isaiah  Tucker 
Irwin,  who,  in  the  session  of  the  legislature 
before  the  war,  was  Speaker  of  the  House  of 
Representatives,  and  until  his  untimely  death 
was  regarded  as  the  most  prominent  candidate 
for  Governor.  They  traveled  altogether  at 
night,  his  guide  during  the  day  procuring  all 
things  needed  for  his  health  and  comfort. 

A  few  weeks  afterwards,  again  receiving  a 
message  from  Colonel  L,ane  that  Toombs,  who 
had  been  concealed  in  a  pine  thicket  near  his 
residence  during  the  day,  needed  our  further 
assistance,  I  again  repaired  there,  and  we  two, 
with  Major  Bird,  conducted  him  through  the 


130  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 

latter 's  plantation  to  the  road  leading  south. 

In  neither  of  these  journeys,  according  to 
my  memory,  did  he  speak  a  single  word  of 
bitterness  about  the  condition  of  the  country 
or  his  own.  During  the  last  ride,  for  several 
miles  toward  the  end  of  our  guidance,  he  and 
I  rode  side  by  side,  the  rest  being  ahead  of  us. 
A  few  months  before,  the  elder  of  his  two 
daughters,  Mrs.  Felix  Alexander,  had  died, 
and  this  was  only  a  few  weeks  after  the  death 
of  my  daughter  L,ucy.  In  extending  condo 
lence  to  me,  he  referred  to  his  own  loss,  and 
for  several  minutes  he  wept  freely,  talking  the 
while  on  the  sufferings  which,  more  keenly 
than  all  others,  such  bereavements  inflict  upon 
the  human  heart. 

It  is  known  that  after  journeying  through 
southern  Georgia  and  Florida,  he  succeeded 
in  making  his  way  to  Havana  from  whence 
he  proceeded  to  France.  He  had  been  only  a 
brief  while  in  Paris,  when  one  day,  while  at 
dinner,  a  telegram  was  brought  to  him 
announcing  the  death  of  his  only  other  child, 
Mrs.  Dudley  Du  Bose. 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON      131 

As  soon  as  it  appeared  that  lie  could  return 
without  risk  of  arrest  and  prosecution,  he  did 
so,  and  for  the  rest  of  his  life  gave  his  time 
mainly  to  rehabilitating  the  State  and  arrang 
ing  a  new  constitution.  Declining  to  apply 
for  amnesty,  his  native  boldness  found  expres 
sion  in  public  and  in  private  upon  his  regrets 
for  the  failure  of  secession,  and  for  the  dis 
asters  to  come  from  it  upon  constitutional 
liberty.  He  persisted  in  claiming  Georgia  for 
his  country.  He  was  the  acknowledged 
leader  in  the  formation  of  the  new  constitu 
tion,  his  strong  personality  and  overpowering 
genius  easily  having  their  way.  The  conven 
tion  expenses  had  been  about  twenty-five 
thousand  dollars  over  the  limits,  and  at  its 
adjournment  he  gave  his  own  check  for  the 
deficit,  for  prudent  investments  before  the  war, 
outside  of  land,  had  saved  a  considerable 
part  of  his  estate,  and  besides  he  had  gotten 
several  large  fees  from  railroad  and  cotton 
litigations. 

The  alienation  between  him  and  Stephens 


132  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OP 

was  of  very  short  duration,  growing  out  of 
some  misunderstanding  regarding  the  lease  of 
the  State  railroad.  They  were  both  profoundly 
gratified  at  the  reconciliation.  Not  long 
afterwards  Toombs  had  an  opportunity  of 
evincing  in  a  signal  manner  his  devotion  to 
this  friend  of  forty  years.  After  the  nomina 
tion  of  Horace  Greeley  for  President,  Stephens 
became  so  hostile  to  his  election  that  he  estab 
lished  a  journal  in  Atlanta  in  order  to  control 
a  more  extensive  field  than  he  could  cover  by 
stump-speaking.  It  was  a  very  unfortunate 
undertaking  financially.  Whatever  were  the 
profits,  not  a  dollar  came  into  his  hands,  but 
on  the  contrary  claims  upon  claims  were  pre 
sented,  for  which,  when  the  campaign  was 
over,  he  gave  his  promissory  notes.  When 
this  became  known  to  Toombs,  he  repaired  to 
Atlanta,  sought  out  the  holders,  and,  paying 
them  off  to  the  amount  of  several  thousand 
dollars,  took  them  to  Stephens'  room,  and 
throwing  them  upon  the  table  said  about  as 
follows:  "  Here,  Ellick,  are  your  notes  given 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON       133 

to  those  Atlanta  people.  I  couldn't  bear  the 
idea  of  their  being  hauled  about  the  streets, 
and  so  I  took  them  up."  Stephens'  death 
was  an  occasion  to  him  of  profound  sorrow. 

Ignoring  Federal  affairs,  he  continued  to 
take  an  intense  interest  in  those  of  the  State. 
Despising  with  all  his  heart  the  men  who,  as  it 
seemed  to  him,  evinced  early  and  eager  desire 
to  be  restored  to  the  good-will  of  those  with 
whom  they  had  lately  been  contending,  and 
pained  at  sight  of  the  general  demoralization 
which,  as  after  all  great  wars,  befell  the  peo 
ple,  particularly  those  engaged  in  politics,  he 
was  accustomed  to  indulge  in  wrathful  feel 
ings,  to  which  no  man  living  knew  how  to  give 
more  poignant,  effective  expression.  For  the 
last  legislature  before  his  death,  he  had  most 
pronounced  hostility.  In  his  opinion  it  con 
tinued  to  sit  far  longer  than  was  necessary, 
and  mainly  for  advancing  the  personal  inter 
ests  of  a  large  number  of  its  leading  members. 
From  his  bed  of  sickness,  which  proved  to  be 
the  bed  of  death,  he  hurled  invectives  toward 


134  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 

those,  calling  many  of  them  by  name,  who  had 
degraded  so  far  below  the  old  standard  of  pa 
triotism  and  honor  in  the  State.  One  day, 
while  near  the  end,  slightly  emerging  from 
obscuration  of  understanding,  he  inquired  if 
the  legislature  had  adjourned;  being  assured 
that  it  had  not,  in  a  low,  just  audible  voice  he 
replied,  "Send  for  Cromwell!  " 

Various  are  the  estimates  that  have  been 
placed  upon  Toombs'  character  and  career. 
One  thing  is  certain,  the  men  who  were  near 
est  to  him,  who  were  closest  witnesses  of  his 
actions,  whether  as  colleagues  or  as  rivals,  both 
knew  and  most  admired  his  genius  and  his 
magnanimity.  If  he  had  been  less  indifferent 
to  men's  opinions  before  or  after  death,  he 
would  have  left  some  written  memorial  of  his 
actions  and  their  motives .  He  was  often  urged 
to  do  this,  but  he  forbore,  and  was  content  to 
be  judged  by  the  Creator  and  the  country. 

Thinking  of  Toombs,  I  sometimes  recall 
what  seem  to  me  apposite  words  of  the  Em 
peror  Augustus,  on  occasion  when  he  happened 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON      135 

to  find  a  young  lad  in  his  household  with  a 
volume  of  Cicero,  which  he  had  been  furtively 
reading.  The  Kmperor,  taking  the  book  out 
of  the  hands  of  the  lad,  who  was  dreading  a 
rebuke,  after  glancing  over  the  pages  for  a  few 
moments  in  silence,  handed  it  back,  with  the 
words:  "My  son,  he  was  a  great  man,  and 
loved  his  country." 


CHAPTER  XIII 

IN  collaboration  with  Professor  Wm.  Hand 
Browne,  of  Johns  Hopkins  University,  I  have 
already  written  a  biography  of  Alexander 
Stephens.  In  this  memoir  I  shall  mention 
some  things  not  seeming  fit  to  be  included  in 
that  more  important  work. 

My  intimate  acquaintance  with  Stephens  be 
gan  during  the  Know  Nothing  campaign  in  the 
year  1855.  Although  born  within  ten  miles 
of  each  other,  though  in  adjoining  counties, 
being  of  different  politics,  he  a  Whig  and  I  a 
stripling  Democrat,  we  did  not  happen  to  be 
come  on  particularly  friendly  terms  with  each 
other  until  this  campaign.  Although  neither 
he  nor  I  knew  much  of  the  dogmas  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  faith,  yet  we  both  revolted 
from  the  thought  of  proscription  of  its  adher 
ents.  He  had  about  decided  that  he  would 
retire  from  Congress  and  keep  to  his  profession. 


138  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OP 

It  was  wonderful  how  the  sudden  passionate 
hostility  against  foreign -born  citizens,  particu 
larly  Catholics,  spread  among  Southern 
Whigs,  who  could  not  be  Free  Soilers,  as  their 
allies  in  the  North  became,  nor  join  with 
Democrats  with  whom  for  years  and  years 
they  contended  on  gory  fields.  And  so  when 
Know  Nothingism  was  born,  they  flooded  to 
it,  accompanied  by  a  not  considerable  number 
of  pious  Democrats,  who,  supposing  that  the 
time  had  come  for  suppressing  Antichrist,  or 
the  Scarlet  Woman,  whichever  of  those  might 
be  the  Pope,  joined  their  forces. 

The  central  point  of  Know  Nothingism  in 
the  State  was  the  city  of  Augusta,  where 
there  was  quite  a  number  of  politicians  among 
the  Whigs  who  for  some  years  had  been  dis 
posed  to  get  Stephens  out  of  the  way,  partly 
because  of  his  independence  of  party  con 
straints  and  partly  for  his  well-known  affilia 
tions  with  rural  instead  of  urban  people.  On 
account  of  the  constantly  increasing  exaspera 
tions  in  Congressional  discussions  upon  the 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON      139 

question  of  slavery,  and  what  appeared  to  him 
growing  dangers  to  the  Federal  Constitution, 
he  decided  during  the  last  months  of  his  term 
to  retire  from  politics  and  devote  himself  en 
tirely  to  his  profession.  The  figure  of  speech 
employed  by  him  in  talks  with  his  friends  was 
this:  Supposing  himself  on  a  railroad  train, 
foreseeing  there  was  to  be  a  wreck  of  some 
sort,  he  had  decided  to  get  off  at  the  next 
station.  The  announcement  of  his  intention 
gave  rise  to  much  comment,  particularly  in 
Augusta,  where  some  of  the  leading  men  of 
the  new  party  declared  that  he  had  retired  with 
pretended  self-denial  because  of  knowing  he 
could  not  be  elected.  Although  not  vindictive, 
he  was  keenly  resentful  to  unjust  reflections 
upon  his  courage  or  his  integrity.  When 
these  remarks  were  repeated  to  him  he  imme 
diately  reversed  his  decision  and  announced 
himself  for  reelection,  and  appointed  an  early 
day  for  opening  the  campaign  in  Augusta. 
His  conduct  of  this  campaign  was  to  me 
always  the  most  interesting  portion  of  his 


140  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 

career.  An  orator  rather  persuasive  than 
otherwise,  in  this,  from  the  beginning  to  the 
close,  he  was  denunciatory  to  the  highest 
degree  of  passion .  To-day  he  would  harangue 
to  a  multitude  two  or  three  hours,  and  after 
wards  retiring  to  his  hotel,  change  for  fresh 
vestments  those  which  had  been  drenched 
throughout  with  perspiration,  take  his  dinner, 
enter  his  buggy  with  Harry,  his  driver,  and 
Rio,  his  dog,  and  make  for  another  appoint 
ment  for  the  morrow  twenty-five  or  thirty 
miles  distant. 

It  was  the  most  exciting  political  campaign 
ever  made  in  the  State.  Stephens  was  un 
questionably  its  most  influential  leader. 
Wherever  he  spoke  vast  numbers  of  both  par 
ties  came  to  hear  him.  Know  Nothingism 
was  defeated  for  good  and  all,  and  afterwards 
very  many  persons  of  entirely  upright  inten 
tions  long  regretted  the  delusion  into  which 
they  were  led. 

It  was  in  the  village  of  Warrenton  during 
a  session   of  the  Supreme   Court,  while  the 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON      141 

campaign  was  at  its  midst,  that  the  intimacy 
between  him  and  myself  began.  I  had  just 
been  defeated  by  Judge  Garnett  Andrews,  the 
Know  Nothing  candidate,  for  judge  of  the 
circuit.  The  present  incumbent  was  Judge 
Eli  H.  Baxter,  a  Know  Nothing  himself,  al 
though  a  particular  friend  to  me.  His  term 
was  to  expire  after  six  months.  One  night  he 
called  me  to  his  room  in  the  hotel  and  said 
that  he  intended  to  resign  as  soon  as  the  pres 
ent  term  of  Warren  Court  was  ended,  and  he 
besought  me  to  accept  appointment  to  the 
place  which  he  was  confident  the  Governor 
(Howell  Cobb)  would  offer.  I  at  once  said 
that  I  would  not  accept,  as  I  should  have  only 
a  term  of  six  months,  in  which  time  the  mis 
takes  necessarily  made  by  a  young  judge 
would  not  have  time  and  opportunity  for 
correction.  Besides,  I  must  lose  somewhat  by 
withdrawal  from  my  practice.  Baxter  was  so 
urgent  that  I  decided  to  take  counsel  with 
Stephens,  who  at  once  coincided  with  my 
views.  The  friendship  thus  begun  continued 


142  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 

eventually  with  much  intimacy  until  his 
death  twenty-five  years  afterwards. 

As  a  lawyer  Stephens  was  unequal  to  sev 
eral  others  whom  he  met  habitually  at  the  bar. 
He  came  forward  after  a  few  weeks'  prelimi 
nary  study,  and  became  involved  in  politics 
too  soon  afterwards  to  allow  opportunity  for 
very  elaborate  study  of  legal  principles.  But 
his  strong  intellect,  his  excellent  common 
sense,  his  quickness  to  perceive  the  main 
issues  in  cases,  his  intense  sympathy  with  his 
clients,  capped  by  his  very  great  powers  as  an 
advocate,  enabled  him  to  stand  on  a  level  with 
the  best.  Then  the  knowledge  not  obtained 
by  reading  he  got  in  apparently  sufficient 
quantity  through  his  quick  absorption  from 
the  debates  of  more  learned  compeers,  Lump- 
kin,  Toombs,  and  Cone. 

His  manner  before  juries  was  in  the  main 
persuasive,  yet  he  knew  as  well  as  any  the 
value  of  satire  and  passion,  and  employed 
them  often  with  wonderful  effect.  If  he  had 
given  himself  entirely  or  mainly  to  the  pro- 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON      143 

fession  he  would  have  made  a  great  lawyer. 
But  he  loved  politics.  Within  only  a  year  or 
two  after  coming  to  the  bar  he  was  sent  to  the 
legislature,  where  he  continued  until  he  was 
elected  to  Congress. 

Possibly  no  man  in  the  State  (if  one  may 
except  Howell  Cobb)  was  as  adroit  in  the 
management  and  conduct  of  political  cam 
paigns.  At  his  home  in  Crawfordsville,  near 
the  western  limits  of  his  Congressional  district, 
he  was  made  familiar  by  personal  visits  of 
subordinate  leaders  and  by  correspondence 
with  conditions  in  every  county,  and  had  con- 
troling  influence  of  its  nominations  for  the 
legislature  and  county  offices.  When  upon 
the  stump  he  always  drew  a* large  audience. 
This  was  owing  in  good  part  to  his  unique  ap 
pearance — his  youthfulness  (as  a  boy  of  seven 
teen),  beardless  face  with  a  pallor  of  death, 
his  emaciated  body  of  weight  little  over  eighty 
pounds,  his  voice  that  was  as  that  of  a  woman 
and  his  eyes  that  pierced  like  the  eagle's — 
these  were  a  charm  that  not  seldom  rose  to  in- 


144  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 

fatuation.  Above  these,  doubtless  aided  by 
the  contrast,  were  his  instant  recognition  of 
the  quality  and  temper  of  his  audience,  the 
never-failing  deliberation  and  art  with  which 
he  gathered  them  in  hand,  the  choice  of  argu 
ments  and  words,  the  gradual  rise  into  high, 
passionate  declamation  got  and  easily  held 
sway.  Fine  as  his  voice  was,  the  distinctness 
of  his  utterance  made  him  clearly  audible  to  a 
larger  audience  than  any  other  man  in  the 
State  could  have  commanded.  As  a  stump 
speaker,  in  my  judgment,  he  was  without  a 
peer  among  all  whom  I  have  known. 

Of  his  course  in  Congress  Dr.  Browne  and 
myself  have  spoken  in  our  biography,  There 
are  some  things  not  contained  therein  relating 
to  his  conduct  during  the  period  of  secession 
and  the  war  that  followed  which  I  will  relate. 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON      145 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE  rise  oi  the  Soil  party  and  its  rapid 
growth  from  small  beginning  gave  much  con 
cern  to  Stephens,  as  well  as  to  a  large  majority 
of  thoughtful  minds  North  and  South.  He 
had  intense  admiration  for  Douglas,  whose 
bold — and  what  Southern  people  regarded — 
unselfish,  patriotic  endeavors,  served  to  post 
pone  the  final  issue.  In  the  Democratic  Con 
vention  of  1852  this  eloquent  champion  was 
supplanted  by  General  (after  President)  Pierce, 
an  honorable  man,  but  not  of  signal  ability, 
as  he  had  not  rendered  specially  important 
service  to  the  country  on  any  line.  The  same 
was  done  in  1856,  when  Douglas  was  again 
turned  down  and  Buchanan  received  the  nom 
ination.  Then  he  resolved  to  not  submit 
another  time  to  such  treatment.  For  this  he 
was  blamed  by  Stephens,  whom  I  have  heard 
say  that  Douglas's  one  infirmity  was  personal 


146  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 

ambition  ;  that  while  the  South  owed  more  to 
him  than  any  other  statesman  in  the  North  for 
his  services  and  sacrifices  in  their  behalf,  he, 
as  a  true  patriot,  ought  to  have  been  content 
with  consciousness  of  the  merit  of  these  serv 
ices  and  sacrifices  and  restrained  personal 
resentment  and  kept  himself  in  touch  with  his 
party.  His  refusal  to  do  this  brought  on  the 
results  of  the  Democratic  Convention  at 
Charleston  in  the  summer  of  1860,  which,  not 
agreeing  upon  a  candidate,  separated  to  meet 
afterwards  in  Baltimore. 

Having  never  been  active  in  politics,  and 
now  for  three  years  engaged  in  the  State 
University,  I  had  not  supposed  that  such  end 
ing  of  the  Charleston  Convention  foreboded 
very  momentous  consequences .  And  so  when , 
a  few  days  afterwards,  as  I  was  returning  to 
Athens  at  the  close  of  the  summer  vacation, 
and  stopped  for  the  night  at  his  house,  I  was 
much  surprised  to  find  him  in  a  state  of  excite 
ment  far  more  intense  than  I  had  ever  known 
of  him.  During  supper  he  had  little  to  say, 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON      147 

even  upon  commonplace  matters.  When  we 
returned  to  his  study,  which  was  his  bedroom 
also,  I  asked  what  he  thought  of  the  existing 
condition  of  the  Democratic  party.  I  remem 
ber  distinctly  his  answer,  which  was  rendered 
in  tone  as  if  he  was  on  the  platform  in  the 
most  passionate  discussion  before  a  large 
audience  : 

"What  do  I  think  of  it?  Why,  sir,  that 
we  are  on  the  verge  of  a  civil  war,  which, 
when  it  comes,  will  be  one  of  the  most  unhappy 
and  disastrous  of  all  in  modern  times  !  ' ' 

This  surprised  me  greatly,  and  I  answered 
that  I  could  not  but  believe  that  his  apprehen 
sions  were  without  good  foundation ;  that  the 
dispersion  of  the  Charleston  Convention  was 
only  because  of  disagreement  as  to  the  nomi 
nee,  and  that  interchange  of  opinion  among 
the  most  prominent  leaders  the  while  would 
lead  to  some  sort  of  compromise  at  the  conven 
tion  to  meet  at  Baltimore  some  weeks  afterward. 

He  at  once  replied  that  such  was  a  vain  hope ; 
that  the  time  for  compromise  was  passed,  and 


148  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 

intentionally  so,  through  the  influence  of  cer 
tain  Southern  politicians,  among  them  William 
S.  Young  and  Howell  Cobb,  who  preferred 
secession  to  the  election  of  Douglas.  The  last 
hope  of  peace  was  blighted  at  Charleston. 
The  convention  at  Baltimore  would  nominate 
an  anti- Douglas  ticket,  and  Douglas  would  be 
come  an  independent  candidate.  The  division 
would  make  sure  the  election,  whoever  he 
might  be,  of  the  Republican  candidate.  When 
that  took  place  South  Carolina  would  secede. 
As  for  himself,  he  would  be  willing  for  her  to 
go.  He  had  no  doubt  that  in  time  she  would 
return.  But  her  action  would  necessarily  be 
followed  by  the  Southern  Atlantic  and  Gulf 
States.  What  would  add  to  the  difficulties  of 
the  situation  would  be  that  the  border  States 
would  hesitate  until  too  late  to  hinder  aggres 
sion  from  the  Northern. 

Among  many  other  things  said  by  him  dur 
ing  many  hours,  a  great  portion  of  which  he 
walked  about  in  the  room,  often  gesticulating 
with  passion,  was  the  fact  that  the  South  was 


COIv.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON      149 

not  possessed  of  statesmen  from  whom  to  choose 
one  in  all  respects  competent  to  lead  in  the 
coming  crisis ;  that  although  its  cause  was  just, 
conflict  of  force  was  being  precipitated  by  men 
who,  from  disappointment  of  personal  aspira 
tions,  had  not  made  themselves  familar  with 
meeting  exigencies  that  would  be  far  more  mo 
mentous  than  they  were  able  to  foresee,  and 
that  the  North,  with  its  far  greater  population 
and  other  resources,  fortified  as  it  would  be  by 
the  opinions  of  mankind,  would  go  into  the 
struggle  with  manifold  greater  advantages. 
From  the  outside  world  the  South  would  get 
no  sympathy,  except  from  individual  minds ; 
that  even  if  it  should  have  temporary  success, 
it  would  be  known  as  the  Black  Republic,  and 
be  a  reproach  among  the  nations. 

Since  the  above  was  written  I  have  found 
what  had  been  mislaid  for  several  years — a 
blank-book,  in  which  I  set  down  events  shortly 
after  their  occurrence,  and  bits  of  conversation 
I  had  with  Stephens.  I  find  the  following  of 
the  date  of  May,  1860: 


150  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 

' '  J . — Well,  the  convention  at  Charleston  has 
adjourned.  What  do  you  think  of  matters 
now?" 

' '  S .—Think  of  them  ?  Why,  that  men  will 
be  cutting  one  another's  throats  in  a  little 
while.  We  shall,  in  less  than  twelve  months, 
be  in  a  civil  war,  and  that  one  of  the  bloodiest 
in  the  history  of  the  world.  Men  seem  to  be 
utterly  blinded  to  the  future.  Their  reason 
has  already  left  them ,  and  in  a  little  while  they 
will  be  under  the  complete  control  of  the  worst 
of  passions .  You  remember  my  reading  to  you 
a  letter  I  wrote  to  a  gentleman  in  Texas,  ask 
ing  the  use  of  my  name  in  his  State  as  a  candi 
date  for  the  Presidency  ?  ' ' 

"J. — The  one  in  which  you  said  that  we 
should  make  Charleston  at  the  time  of  the 
convention  either  a  Marathon  or  a  Waterloo  ?  ' ' 

"S. — Yes.  Well,  we  have  made  it  a  Wa 
terloo." 

"J. — Don't  you  think  it  possible  that  mat 
ters  may  be  adjusted  in  Baltimore? " 

"S. — Not  the  slightest  chance  of  it.     The 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON      151 

party  is  split  now  and  forever.  If  it  could 
have  agreed,  either  on  Douglas  or  any  one  else, 
we  might  have  carried  the  election.  As  it  is, 
the  cause  is  hopelessly  lost.  The  election  can 
not  be  carried  without  Douglas's  support." 

"J. — I  hope  he  will  give  it." 

"S.— Never!" 

"J. — What  a  misfortune  it  is  that  he  did 
not  support  the  L,ecompton  constitution . ' ' 

"  S. — Yes ;  but  he  knew,  as  we  all  did,  that 
it  was  procured  by  fraud.  I  supported  it,  not 
because  it  was  fairly  obtained,  but  because  it 
was  right  when  obtained.  The  fraud  was 
glaring.  I  feel,  when  looking  back  at  it,  like 
the  sons  of  Noah  when  they  saw  their  father 
naked — I  wished  it  might  be  covered  up  from 
the  world.  Douglas  would  not  support  it.  I 
thought  it  ought  to  be,  and  think  so  yet,  be 
cause  it  gave  us  only  what  we  were  entitled  to 
under  the  Kansas  Act." 

"J. — You  consider  him  entitled  to  the 
nomination,  don't  you?" 

"  S. — I  won't  say  that  he  is  entitled  to  it, 


152  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 

but  I  will  say  that  he  has  done  more  for  slav 
ery  than  any  other  man  in  the  North.  He 
has  far  surpassed  all  other  men  in  vindicating 
the  truth  that  the  negro  is  the  inferior  of  the 
white  man.  And  then  his  name  has  been  the 
strongest  in  two  conventions.  He  voluntarily 
withdrew  it  in  1852;  the  same  in  1856.  I 
suppose  he  has  made  up  his  mind  not  to  do 
so  a  third  time.  The  only  objections  to  him 
are  his  ambitions  and  his  countless  hordes  of 
office-seekers  that  are  in  his  suite.  If  I  could 
make  a  platform  and  nominate  a  candidate,  I 
am  inclined  to  think  that  I  would  nominate 
Hunter.  If  the  party  were  satisfied  with  the 
Cincinnati  platform  and  would  cordially  nom 
inate  Douglas  we  should  carry  the  election, 
but  I  tell  you  that  now  that  is  impossible." 
" J. — But  why  must  we  have  civil  war?" 
"  S. — Simply  because  there  are  not  virtue, 
patriotism,  and  sense  enough  left  in  the  coun 
try  to  avoid  it.  I  repeat  that  in  less  than 
twelve  months  we  shall  be  in  one  of  the 
bloodiest  civil  wars  that  history  has  recorded, 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON      153 

and  what  is  to  become  of  us  then ,  God  only 
knows.  The  Union  will  certainly  be  dis 
solved.  The  South  has  strength  enough  to 
make  a  great  empire  if  its  men  were  wise  and 
patriotic  and  prudent.  These  are  the  only 
points  on  which  I  should  have  fears  for  the 
future.  But  unless  we  change  in  these  re 
spects,  this  whole  country,  North  and  South, 
will  sink  into  the  condition  of  Mexico." 

"  J. — Did  you  really  say  what  was  reported 
of  you  when  you  resigned  your  place  in  Con 
gress — namely,  that  matters  were  going  to 
ruin  in  Washington,  and  that  you  got  off  at 
the  nearest  station  because  you  foresaw  a 
break  down  ? ' ' 

' '  S. — Yes;  I  think  I  used  those  very  words. ' ' 

"  J. — Do  you  think  you  were  right  in  refus 
ing  to  allow  your  name  to  go  before  the 
Charleston  convention?" 

"  S. — I  do.  I  did  not  wish  the  office  in  the 
first  place,  nor  any  other.  What  amazes  me 
is  to  see  Douglas'  ambition  to  be  President. 
I  have  asked  him  what  he  wished  the  office 


154  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 

for.  It  never  yet  has  added  to  one  man's 
fame.  You  may  look  over  the  list  of  the 
Presidents.  Which  of  them  made  any  repu 
tation  after  he  became  President?  Four 
years,  or  even  eight  years,  are  too  short  a  time 
to  enable  a  man  to  employ  any  policy  which 
will  be  permanent  enough  to  give  him  repu 
tation. 

"  Louis  Napoleon,  as  President  under  the 
constitution  which  elected  him,  could  have 
made  more.  He  is  beginning  now  to  make 
it.  When  he  has  been  where  he  is  as  long 
again  as  he  has  been  already,  he  may  then,  if 
he  has  really  good  ability,  become  illustrious. 
I  never  could  see  why  so  many  men  wish  to 
become  President.  People  don't  believe  me 
generally,  I  suppose.  That  is  all  indifferent 
to  me.  Some  of  you  people  in  Athens  will 
persist  in  believing  that  I  opposed  the  nomi 
nation  of  Governor  Cobb  at  the  Milledgeville 
convention.  I  had  nothing  on  earth  to  do 
with  it,  neither  for  nor  against  him.  I  was 
perfectly  willing  that  he  should  get  the  nomi- 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON      155 

nation  if  he  could.  I  never  had  any  doubt 
that  he  could  not.  No,  sir;  I  should  prefer 
to  live  here,  right  here,  to  being  President. 
If  I  had  loved  office,  I  should  have  continued 
Representative  in  Congress." 

The  next  entry  in  my  book  was  made  on 
May  30,  1861.  It  was  on  an  occasion  when 
Hon.  Thomas  W.  Thomas,  ex -judge  of  the 
Northern  circuit,  and  myself  met  at  Mr. 
Stephens'  home  in  Crawford ville.  Among 
other  things  said  by  him,  I  recorded  the  fol 
lowing  : 

"S. — All  the  Cabinet,  except  Blair,  were 
opposed  to  the  war,  honestly  so.  They  were 
driven  into  it  by  Cassius  Clay,  Jim  Lane,  and 
the  Republican  Governors.  The  North,  I  be 
lieve,  will  go  into  anarchy.  They  have  lost 
all  appreciation  of  constitutional  liberty. 
They  may  hold  up  longer  and  break  down  in 
six  months,  but  the  ruin  will  come  before 
Lincoln's  administration  is  over.  They  have 
never  before  had  any  just  idea  of  the  value  of 
the  South  to  them.  They  are  now  like  leeches 


156  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 

that  have  been  shaken  off  a  horse's  leg,  and 
are  beginning  to  find  out  what  it  was  that 
fattened  them.  We  are  the  horse,  and  what 
they  are  determined  to  do  is  to  get  the  horse 
back  again.  Why,  look  now;  three  months 
ago  William  Soto  was  worth  thirty  millions 
of  dollars;  he  is  now  worth  fifteen.  He  is 
likely  very  soon  to  be  worth  only  one.  Brick 
and  mortar  are  his  property,  and  they  had 
almost  as  well  be  in  Babylon." 

"Judge  T. — Governor  Cobb  thinks  that 
when  Congress  meets  the  showing  which  Sec 
retary  Chase  will  make  of  money  will  frighten 
them  into  a  cessation  of  hostilities." 

"  S. — I  wish  in  my  heart  it  may  be  so,  but 
I  don't  believe  it.  Either  they  will  do  that,  or 
they  will  become  an  assembly  of  French  Jaco 
bins,  and,  if  necessary,  will  raise  money  by 
putting  assignats  upon  Astor  and  the  balance 
of  the  rich  ones.  The  Administration  can  not 
stop  the  war.  They  are  pushed  on  by  the  peo 
ple,  and  they  who  hesitate  will  be  hung  or  ex 
iled  .  This  is ,  in  my  opinion ,  what  is  to  happen 


COL,.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON       157 

to  Scott.  The  Girondists  in  the  French  Revo 
lution  led  first,  and  afterwards  were  put  out  of 
the  way  by  the  Jacobins.  Seward  may  be 
smart  enough  to  become  a  Robespierre." 

' '  Judge  T.—  What  do  you  think  of  the  South 
having  a  Dictator  ?  ' ' 

(<  S. — It  would  never  do  !  We  are  the  only 
ones  who  can  hold  on  to  constitutional  liberty, 
and  we  must  not  part  with  it  for  one  day. 

Our  War  Department  is  managed  badly.  

is  very  inefficient.  He'll  do,  and  do,  and  do 
nothing  at  last.  He  is  like  a  man  who  is 
playing  chess — thinks,  and  thinks,  and  thinks 
before  moving,  and  then  makes  a  feel  move. 
He  is  very  rash  in  counsel  and  lamentably  in 
efficient  and  irresolute  in  action.  There  were 
twenty  thousand  stand  of  arms  offered  him  for 
sale.  He  was  urged  to  buy  them,  but  post 
poned  until  after  the  fall  of  Sumter,  then  tried 
to  get  them,  but  it  was  too  late.  Toombs 
ought  to  have  been  there.  He  is  the  brains  of 
the  whole  concern .  Slidell  was  offered  a  place 
among  the  Commissioners  to  Europe,  but  put 


158  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

his  objection  on  the  ground  of  there  being 
three — he  would  have  gone  alone. 

' '  I  could  not  for  my  life  persuade  General 
L,ee  that  the  North  wanted  specially  to  get 
back  Harper's  Ferry,  and  that  it  was  the  most 
important  point  for  military  operations  on  both 
sides.  I  greatly  fear  that  we  have  not  suf 
ficient  force  there.  Sidney  Johnston  is  the 
man  to  lead  the  army.  Beauregard  and  Lee 
are  best  at  inquiring.  We  ought  to  have 
Johnston.  I  very  much  fear  that  he  has  been 
arrested  in  New  York.  We  can  whip  in  this 
fight,  but  we  will  have  to  fight  hard.  It  will 
be  a  hard  one,  I've  not  a  doubt.  Ideas  are 
changing — ideas  of  greatness.  The  heroic 
spirit  will  be  uppermost  now  for  some  time. 
If  we  had  a  million  bales  of  cotton  pledged  to 
us  we  could  borrow  money  in  Europe  and  get 
as  many  ships  as  we  want." 

I  remember  to  have  heard  him  earnestly 
advocate  the  purchase  by  the  government  of 
cotton,  which  was  then  selling  at  eight  cents. 
The  government,  if  need  be,  might  purchase 
at  ten. 


COL,.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON      159 

In  an  interview  on  June  n,  1862,  he  said 
the  following,  among  other  things  : 

"  Beauregard  is  no  general.  He  is  only  a 
clever  little  fellow.  Instead  of  retreating  on 
west,  and  protecting  Memphis  and  the  coun 
try  between  the  Tennessee  and  the  Mississippi, 
he  has  come  farther  south.  Memphis  will 
fall,  of  course.  Beauregard  expects  Halleck 
to  follow  him.  He  won't  do  it,  in  my  opinion. 
All  that  our  army  can  do  where  they  are  will 
be  to  eat  up  everything  within  fifty  miles  of 
it.  The  day  for  a  vigorous  policy  is  past.  It 
is  too  late  to  do  anything. 

' '  What  stupendous  ignorance  of  the  value 
of  cotton  to  us  !  The  government  and  those 
who  favored  its  policy  did  not  undervalue  it, 
but  misunderstood  the  character  of  its  value. 
In  their  opinion,  cotton  was  a  political  power. 
There  was  the  mistake — it  is  only  a  commer 
cial  power.  If  it  had  been  understood  and 
employed  that  way,  it  would  have  been  easy 
to  manage  the  government  by  getting  money 
in  Europe  to  buy  enough  ironclad  ships  to 


l6o  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

keep  several  ports  open.  It  is  now  too  late 
for  that.  Our  portal  system  is  closed  effectu 
ally,  and  we  can  no  more  stand  it  than  a  man 
can  stand  the  closing  of  his  portal  system. 
He  dies  of  strangury,  and  we  must  naturally 
do  the  same.  I  think  we  are  ruined  irre 
trievably." 

"  J. — Do  you  think  that  Mr.  Davis  has  any 
confidence  in  the  attainment  of  independence  ? ' ' 

"  S. — He  acts  as  if  he  did  not.  I  suppose 
he  intends  to  imitate  the  career  of  Sidney 
Johnston,  the  way  I  read  some  of  his  conduct. ' ' 

"  J. — Suppose  the  Government  were  to  de 
volve  upon  you?" 

"  S. — It  would  be  too  late  to  do  anything." 

"  J. — You  would  not  abandon  it,  however; 
you  would  take  hold  and  try  to  do  something. ' ' 

' '  S — I  can  not  say  that  I  have  most  deeply 
regretted  allowing  the  use  of  my  name  last  fall. 
I  don't  know  how  I  came  to  make  the  mistake, 
but  I  hoped  it  would  do  good  in  the  way  of 

preserving  harmony." 

"  J. — In  what  shape,  think  you,  our  ruin  is 
to  come?" 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON      l6l 

"S. — I  don't  know.  Our  enemies  do  not 
know  themselves  what  they  intend." 

"  J.—  What  of  the  next  elections  North  ?" 

"  S. — The  Black  Republicans  will  largely 
prevail.  No  doubt  that  some  of  the  present 
Congress  will  be  left  out,  and  others  as  bad,  or 
even  worse,  will  get  in." 

"  J. — What,  in  your  belief,  will  become  of 
the  negroes?" 

"  I — I  can't  say.  No  one  but  God  can  tell. 
If  they  are  freed,  they  must  become  extinct 
after  a  while.  I  have  most  abundant  confi 
dence  in  the  Providence  of  God,  and  feel  that 
His  hand  is  over  all,  and  that  whatever  comes 
to  us  all  will  be  by  His  Providence.  Oh,  the 
ruin,  the  ruin  that  war  brings  to  mankind  ! 
Ruin  to  character,  to  domestic  aifections,  to 
everything  good  and  valuable  ! 

' '  Our  last  Congress  was  a  weak  and  con 
temptible  body.  They  sat  with  closed  doors. 
It  was  well  they  did,  and  so  kept  from  the 
public  some  of  the  most  disgraceful  scenes  ever 
enacted  by  a  legislative  body." 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE  following  is  a  portion  of  a  conversation 
^  Stephens,  on  November  30,  1862: 

' '  J . — On  what  sort  of  terms  are  you  now 
with  the  President?" 

"  S. — Very  good,  indeed.  Whenever  we 
meet  he  is  perfectly  agreeable.  We  meet  but 
seldom,  however.  He  used  to  send  for  me 
often  to  consult.  Since  the  Government  was 
removed  to  Richmond  he  has  done  so,  I  think, 
but  once.  Somebody,  I  suppose,  told  him  of 
some  remarks  I  made  in  the  Provincial  Con 
gress  on  the  government  of  the  army.  I  was 
very  anxious  for  the  Secretary  of  War  to  be 
present  when  I  introduced  the  resolutions, 
and  hoped  he  would  be.  I  was  probably  a 
little  severe  in  my  remarks  upon  the  subject 
of  granting  furloughs  to  sick  soldiers.  I 
wished  to  do  away  with  the  medical  board 
established  for  that  purpose,  and  leave  grant- 


164  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 

ing  of  furloughs  where  it  ought  to  be  left, 
with  the  surgeons  and  colonels  of  regiments 
and  the  brigadier  generals.  The  Government 
objected  on  the  ground  that  the  surgeons 
might  be  corrupted.  I  could  not  but  feel 
some  indignation  at  this,  because  one  o|"  the 
medical  board  I  knew  to  be  corrupt,  as  he 
was  known  by  the  Government  to  be  so. 
Since  that  time,  as  I  remember,  the  President 
has  not  sent  for  me. 

' '  He  is  awfully  deficient  in  the  dispatch  of 
business.  Toombs  would  dispatch  more  in 
twenty  minutes  than  he  does  in  three  hours." 
' '  J . — Are  Toombs  and  he  avowedly  hostile? ' ' 
"  S. — Not  at  all;  Toombs  has  no  resent 
ments  whatever.  He  has  never  gotten  over 
a  quarrel  he  had  with  him  in  the  Gas- 
kill  case.  It  is  singular  that  I  have  for 
gotten  this  case.  My  recollection  is  that  it  was 
of  little  importance,  altogether  too  little  to 
excite  resentment  in  either  of  the  parties.  Yet 
they  are  ostensibly  friendly  enough.  Toombs 
took  dinner  with  him  as  he  came  through  Rich- 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON      165 

mond.  When  the  President  was  first  elected 
I  urged  him  to  give  Toombs  first  choice  of 
place  in  his  Cabinet,  hoping  that  he  would 
take,  as  he  ought  to  have  done,  that  of  Secre 
tary  of  War.  But  he  (the  President)  replied 
that  he  desired  to  pay  him  the  highest  com 
pliment  by  naming  him  to  the  highest  position. 
When  he  did,  Toombs  answered  declining. 
The  President  sent  the  telegram  to  me.  I  then 
sent  Toombs  one,  to  Argus,  where  he  then  was 
with  a  sick  daughter,  urging  him  to  accept. 
He  answered  that  he  would  consider  it ;  upon 
his  return  in  May  he  decided  to  take  it  for  a 
short  time." 

' '  J . — Has  not  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
come  somewhat  near  your  views  ?  Is  not  the 
Government  buying  cotton  ?" 

"  S. — Yes,  I  believe  so.  I  received  a  note 
from  Clayton,  the  Assistant  Secretary,  com 
plimenting  the  speech  I  made  upon  the  subject 
at  Crawfordville,  saying  it  was  the  best  effort 
of  my  life.  I  don't  agree  with  him  at  all  as  to 
that,  and  was  very  much  surprised  at  receiving 
such  a  letter  from  him." 


1 66  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

"  J. — Have  not  your  views  of  General  Lee 
undergone  some  change  ?" 

' '  S. — No.  He  is  about  as  good  a  general  as 
we  have,  and  better  than  any  in  the  North. 
But  he  does  not  reach  with  the  great  generals 
of  the  world.  I  mean  that  he  is  nowhere  such 
a  man  as  Caesar  and  Bonaparte.  He  was  evi 
dently  surprised  at  Sharpsburg .  I  do  not  think 
that  he  knew  the  enemy  to  be  in  his  rear." 

' '  J. — There  seems  to  be  a  growing  sentiment 
among  the  people  in  favor  of  a  stronger  govern 
ment.  The  experiment  of  self-government  by 
the  people  is  beginning  to  be  regarded  a 
failure." 

"  S. — There  was  no  fault  in  the  government. 
It  was  the  best  that  ever  was.  The  difficulty 
was  with  the  people." 

"J. — But  it  was  a  failure,  say  from  that 
cause.  Had  we  not,  then,  as  well  give  up  the 
question?" 

"  S. — No,  I  say  not.  I  am  not  willing  to 
give  up  constitutional  States  rights.  I  repeat 
that  the  fault  was  not  with  the  government, 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON       167 

but  with  the  people.  Until  they  become  more 
virtuous  and  more  patriotic,  no  government 
will  stand  with  them." 

On  December  1 3 ,  among  many  other  things 
said  by  him  were  the  following : 

"  S. — I  knew  that  Douglas  would  oppose 
the  settlement  of  the  Kansas  difficulties  under 
the  L,ecompton  constitution.  I  won  a  bet  on 
it  from  Governor  Cobb.  I  knew  this  because 
of  the  fraud  that  was  prevalent  in  the  election. 
The  Free  Soil  men  had  been  promised  by  Gov 
ernor  Walker,  who  told  them  that  he  spoke  for 
one  higher  than  himself,  meaning  the  Presi 
dent,  that  the  constitution  should  be  again 
submitted  to  the  people  for  their  ratification  or 
objection.  Acting  upon  that  promise,  they 
did  not  vote.  Douglas  was  willing  to  make 
the  issue  upon  the  first  election,  but  the 
Administration  did  not,  because  of  the  design  to 
ruin  Douglas  at  the  North.  As  the  issue  was 
then  made,  Douglas  refused  to  abide  by  the 
first  election.  I  voted  purely  upon  its  legality 
and  upon  its  being  right.  There  was  immense 


1 68  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

fraud,  but  the  election  was  right,  as  the  result 
gave  to  the  South  only  what  was  just  and  right. 
If  the  South  had  not  seceded,  Lincoln's 
Administration  would  have  broken  down  in 
sixty  days.  He  was  entirely  powerless  to  do 
harm." 

' '  J . — Do  you  not  suppose  that  the  Southern 
leaders  who  induce  secession  must  shudder 
sometimes  in  contemplating  its  consequences?" 

' '  S. — No,  not  at  all.  People  can  always  find 
somebody  or  something  to  blame  rather  than 
themselves  or  their  actions  for  failures  and  dis 
asters.  Our  people  do  not  seem  to  understand 
any  thing  of  the  nature  and  cause  of  this  revolu 
tion.  We  seceded  because  the  North  refused 
to  support  the  Constitution.  We  seceded  in 
order  to  retain  it.  The  people  seem  to  think 
that  we  broke  up  the  Constitution  because  it 
was  found  to  be  useless.  This  Legislature 
abuses  Governor  Brown  because  he  wishes  to 
save  the  Constitution.  He  is  old-fashioned, 
yet  he  knows  what  he  is  about.  Truth  is,  he 
has  more  sense  than  the  whole  Legislature." 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON       169 

On  August  i,  1863,  Stephens,  while  on  a 
visit  to  his  brother  L,inton,  at  Sparta,  spoke  by 
request  of  the  people  in  the  Baptist  church.  I 
put  down  afterwards  some  of  his  words: 

"  The  country  is  in  great  peril,  and  matters 
will  become  worse  before  they  are  better;  but 
there  is  not  adequate  reason  for  the  great  de 
spondency  now  pressing  upon  the  public  mind. 
The  fall  of  Vicksburg  and  Port  Hudson  was  a 
misfortune.  The  fall  of  Charleston  and  Rich 
mond  would  be  another,  but  the  former  was 
not  sufficient,  and  the  latter  would  not  be  suf 
ficient  to  discourage  us.  There  is  but  one 
question  to  ask  ourselves — that  is,  Are  we 
determined  to  be  free  ?  If  we  are,  subjuga 
tion  is  impossible .  Charleston ,  Savannah ,  and 
Augusta  were  all  in  possession  of  the  British 
during  the  War  of  Independence.  Our  Con 
gress  was  driven  from  Philadelphia,  as  that 
city  was  long  in  their  possession.  The  taking 
of  cities  is  but  a  small  matter  towards  subju 
gating  a  people  who  are  determined  not  to  be 
subjugated.  Frederick  the  Great  of  Prussia 


1 70  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OP 

was  driven  back  and  forth  over  his  dominions 
seven  years,  having  his  capital  sacked  twice, 
but  resolving  not  to  quit,  he  succeeded,  com 
ing  out  of  the  war  more  powerful  than  when 
he  went  into  it. 

"We  do  not  lack  courage.  The  Yankees 
predicted  that  we  would  have  enough  of  that  ; 
but  they  predicted,  also,  that  we  would  be  lack 
ing  in  patience. 

' '  The  idea  of  reconstruction  is  now  obso 
lete.  Some  persons  dream  of  it,  especially  the 
speculatives.  I  see  that  Mr.  Vallandigham 
dreams  of  it  also.  It  is  a  dream,  and  is  like 
that  of  the  Indian  who  trusts  that  when  he 
dies  his  hunting  ground  and  dogs  will  bear 
him  company  in  the  world  beyond. 

"  I  loved  the  old  Union.  If  States  Rights 
had  been  respected,  as  ought  to  have  been 
done,  we  would  have  been  the  greatest,  freest 
nation  on  earth.  We  should  be  so  if  they 
were  acknowledged  now.  When  South  Caro 
lina  seceded  she  ought  to  have  been  allowed 
to  go  in  peace.  If  it  had  been  best  for  her 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON      17 1 

she  ought  to  have  done  so.  If  it  had  not  been 
best,  she  would  have  returned,  just  as  small 
bodies,  on  the  principle  of  universal  attraction, 
will  return  to  the  greater.  It  is  vain  to  hope 
for  the  intervention  of  France  or  Great  Brit 
ain." 

On  March  4,  1868,  I  went  to  Crawford ville 
in  response  to  a  letter  from  Stephens  on  the 
eve  of  his  departure  from  Richmond  after  the 
Fortress  Monroe  Conference,  asking  me  to  do 
so.  I  find  on  reference  to  my  MMS.  that  I 
recorded  less  of  his  conversation  then  than  I 
had  been  supposing  during  the  years  since 
gone  by.  The  following  are  some  of  these : 

"The  objects  of  this  mission  are  misunder 
stood  by  the  people.  It  was  to  obtain  a  truce 
if  possible.  Blair  had  stated  in  Richmond 
that  President  Lincoln  was  very  much  pressed 
by  the  Radicals  at  home  to  employ  the  most 
extreme  measures  with  whom  they  termed  the 
rebels,  and  that  now,  as  the  relations  with 
France  were  becoming  embarrassing,  it  would 
be  a  good  time  to  make  overtures  to  the  United 


172  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

States  Government  on  the  basis  of  the  Monroe 
Doctrine.  I  believed  that  Blair  was  sincere 
and  that  much  good  could  be  done  by  the  ex 
ercise  of  prudence.  I  urged  Mr.  Davis  to 
keep  the  matter  a  profound  secret,  and  to  send 
some  one  from  Richmond  whose  absence 
would  not  be  noticed,  and  I  suggested  Judge 
Campbell.  He  answered  that  the  commission 
must  consist  of  more  than  one.  I  then  sug 
gested  to  add  Tom  Flourney,  who  at  that  time 
was  in  Richmond.  I  was  sent  for  afterwards 
by  the  President,  who  said  that  the  Cabinet 
had  agreed  upon  myself,  Hunter,  and  Camp 
bell.  I  found  that  the  appointment  was  al 
ready  generally  known  in  Richmond.  Before 
that  I  had  advised  the  President  to  go  himself; 
but  he  declined,  saying  that  President  Lincoln 
would  refuse  to  meet  him.  I  was  reluctant  to 
go,  because  the  President  sympathized  little 
with  the  object  of  the  mission.  But  I  con 
cluded  to  do  so,  because  it  would  have  been 
mentioned  to  my  injury  if  I  did  not,  and  be 
cause  of  even  a  slight  hope  of  doing  some 
good." 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON      173 

He  then  spoke  of  General  Grant,  whom  he 
met  for  the  first  time  while  on  the  way  to  the 
conference,  and  of  whose  qualities  and  pros 
pective  fortunes  he  formed  high  opinions. 
Among  very  many  other  things  said  in  his 
praise  were  these  : 

"  I  was  much  impressed  by  Grant,  noticing 
particularly  his  consideration  of  his  subal 
terns.  It  is  a  great  mistake  to  suppose  that 
he  is  not  popular  with  his  army.  He  is  much 
beloved  by  them.  His  quarters  were  in  a 
double  log  house.  I  noticed  that  when  he 
spoke  to  an  orderly  he  always  concluded  with 
about  such  words  as  these,  'Do  this  as  quickly 
as  you  can,  will  you,  orderly  ?'  Grant  is  ex 
ceedingly  anxious  for  peace.  He  greatly  dis 
likes  the  idea  of  a  military  despotism.  He 
wants  peace,  and  with  it,  liberty  for  the  people. 

' '  I  strongly  preferred  a  truce  without  terms, 
leaving  the  States  to  adjust  themselves  as 
would  suit  their  interests.  If  it  was  to  their 
interests  to  reunite,  they  would  do  so. 

' '  President  Lincoln  and  Seward  admitted 


174  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

complications  with  France,  but  they  did  not 
expect  us  to  speak  publicly  of  that  matter. 
They  insisted  on  reconstruction.  I  urged 
Lincoln  to  reconsider  his  conclusion  that  an 
agreement  for  reconstruction  must  precede  a 
truce ;  he  answered  that  he  would,  but  that  he 
did  not  think  that  he  could  change  his  mind. 
I  insisted  upon  States  Rights.  Seward  put 
the  case,  supposing  that  Louisiana  should 
secede  and  be  united  to  France.  I  answered 
that  he  took  an  extreme  case,  but  if  France 
would  treat  her  better  than  the  Union  it  would 
be  right  to  do  so. 

' '  President  Davis  received  the  report  of  the 
commissioners  in  the  wrong  spirit.  I  urged 
that  something  might  yet  be  done ;  but  he 
would  do  nothing,  and  was  inclined  to  com 
plain  of  the  terms  in  which  the  note  was  writ 
ten  by  the  commissioners  to  Grant.  We  are 
at  sea.  The  President  seems  determined,  if 
he  can  not  succeed  on  his  plan ,  to  ruin  every 
thing. 

"  I  do  not  believe  that  Europe  has  any  no- 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON       175 

tion  of  interfering.  Momentous  events  will 
soon  transpire.  We  shall  know  by  the  sum 
mer  solstice  what  is  to  be.  I  hope  that  among 
the  probabilities,  ruin  may  be  averted ;  but 
unless  our  policy  changes  it  can  not  be." 

I  was  much  surprised,  on  looking  up  my 
manuscripts,  which  I  had  not  regarded  for 
many  years,  that  I  did  not  record  what  I  well 
remember  to  have  heard  Stephens  say  of  a 
portion  of  President  Lincoln's  remarks  at  this 
conference.  During  the  interchange  of 
thoughts  upon  the  subject  of  slavery,  Mr. 
Lincoln,  in  his  own  peculiar  manner  of  ap 
parently  unstudied  speech,  as  if  he  were  indif 
ferent  whether  the  words  he  spoke  were  re 
garded  as  expressing  his  sentiments,  said 
about  as  follows,  addressing  himself  familiarly 
to  Stephens : 

"  Mr.  Stephens,  if  I  lived  in  the  South — 
although  of  course  a  man  of  my  views  about 
slavery  wouldn't  be  allowed  to  live  there — 
still,  if  I  did,  it  seems  to  me  that  I  would 
counsel  owners  of  slaves  to  decide  upon  some 


176  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 

time  when  they  would  be  emancipated :  say 
twenty  years,  thirty  years,  or  even  fifty  years. 
But  to  fix  upon  some  certain  date  for  which 
they  could  make  timely  preparation . ' ' 

Entirely  clear  interpretation  of  these  words 
can  not  be  given,  but  they  seem  to  indicate 
that  if  the  South  would  agree  to  reunion,  favor 
able,  even  liberal,  treatment  of  the  slavery 
question  would  have  been  accorded  in  so  far 
as  it  might  be  influenced  by  President  Lincoln. 
He  exhibited  during  the  conference  earnest 
desire  for  the  composition  of  existing  dis 
putes.  I  have  seen  it  stated  that  he  proposed 
to  the  commissioners  that,  after  writing  upon 
a  blank  page  the  word  ' '  Reunion  ' '  they 
might  insert  the  rest.  I  have  no  idea  that 
this  is  true.  Nothing  like  it  was  said  by 
Stephens  to  me,  with  whom  he  held  closest 
intimacy. 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON      177 


CHAPTER  XVI 

MR.  STEPHENS  had  resolved  that  in  the 
event  of  failure  of  the  Confederate  cause  he 
would  not  avoid  capture  by  the  United  States 
Government.  Providing  himself  with  what 
amount  of  gold  he  could  get  for  allowable 
extra  expenses  in  prison  he  remained  at  home, 
awaiting  those  who  were  to  be  sent  for  his 
arrest.  During  his  imprisonment  at  Fortress 
Monroe  he  kept  a  diary,  intended  only  for  his 
brother  Linton  and  myself.  It  contained 
some  two  hundred  pages,  with  observations 
partly  upon  the  occurrences  of  his  life  therein 
and  upon  philosophical  and  literary  subjects. 
This  MS.  is  now  in  possession  of  a  member  of 
his  family. 

It  seemed  an  unbecoming  severity  in  plac 
ing  so  frail  a  man  in  a  low,  damp  room. 
Therein  he  contracted  the  rheumatism,  which 


I 


178  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

remained  throughout  the  rest  of  his  life. 
When  I  met  him  upon  his  release  several 
months  afterwards  he  had  grown  quite  gray 
and  otherwise  aged  much. 

Upon  his  return  he  determined  to  exert  his 
whole  influence  in  counseling  his  people  in 
the  way  of  reconstruction.  He  sorely  re 
gretted  the  death  of  President  Lincoln,  regard 
ing  it  a  great  calamity  to  the  whole  country, 
particularly  the  South.  It  was  but  an  added 
great  misfortune  that  his  successor  was  a 
Southern  man.  Him  the  Southern  people 
never  liked,  and  the  policy  of  reconstruction 
adopted  by  him  they  detested.  He  made  the 
mistake  not  uncommon  with  men  in  his  con 
dition  of  bestowing  amnesty  upon  the  great 
body  of  Confederates  and  withholding  it  from 
its  leaders.  In  this  he  showed  that  he  was 
entirely  ignorant  of  the  Southern  people. 
Imprisonment  of  those  whom  they  had  most 
trusted,  both  in  peace  and  in  war,  alienated 
them  further  and  further  from  him,  who  had 
vainly  expected  to  form  a  party  for  himself  by 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON       179 

such  action .  The  exclusion  from  Congress  of 
such  men  as  Herschel  Johnston  and  Alexander 
Stephen,  and  the  acceptance  of  such  as  Foster, 
Blodget  and  his  likes  could  not  but  serve  to- 
exasperate  a  brave  people .  Yet ,  while  Toombs ,. 
defiant  to  the  last,  kept  himself  aloof,  Stephens 
entered  heartily  into  the  midst  of  existing  con 
ditions,  counseling  compliance  with  the  inevi 
table,  and  endeavored  to  make  all  that  was 
possible  out  of  it.  He  could  not  ally  himself, 
as  some  did,  with  the  Republican  party  ;  but 
he  could  commend  patience  that  he  practiced 
himself. 

The  following  is  the  last  extract  that  I  shall 
make  from  these  MSS.  They  record  a  portion 
of  the  conversation  had  with  him  December 
4,  1866: 

' '  Nothing  could  have  been  worse  than  se 
cession  as  a  means  of  obtaining  redress  for  the 
violated  rights  of  the  South.  Congress  was 
against  Lincoln,  and  would  have  rendered  any 
unlawful  action  nugatory.  We  were  in  the 
fort  and  the  enemy  outside.  We  left  it  in  order 


180  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

to  fight  him  outside .  We  have  been  conquered , 
and  are  now  trying  to  get  back  into  the  fort 
and  can  not.  We  are  like  a  man  who  had  a 
gun,  while  his  enemy  was  unarmed,  and  who 
gave  up  his  weapon. 

' '  I  used  to  have  great  confidence  in  the  good 
sense  of  the  people,  but  I  begin  to  fear  that 
they  are  not  competent  to  cope  with  the  great 
difficulties  before  them.  The  white  people  of 
the  South  are  slow  in  being  brought  to  see  the 
necessity  of  doing  justice  to  the  negro.  The 
education  of  the  latter  is  now  absolutely  nec 
essary  in  order  to  make  him  useful  to  the  white 
man.  If  we  had  risen  at  once  to  the  full  view 
of  all  the  necessities  attending  the  emancipa 
tion  of  the  negro,  we  should  have  been  in  the 
Union  long  ago.  It  is  hard  to  get  our  people 
to  the  point  where  they  can  do  the  negro  full 
justice.  I  see  it  stated  that  General  Grant  has 
been  advising  the  President  to  urge  upon  the 
South  the  adoption  of  the  Constitutional 
Amendments. 

"  I  think  Grant  is  in  favor  of  the  Amend- 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON     l8l 

ments.  He  is  an  unsophisticated  man.  He 
does  not  see  the  consequences  of  the  Amend 
ments.  He  believes  that  the  enfranchisement 
of  the  Southern  whites  would  soon  follow  its 
adoption." 

"J. — Do  you  not  suspect  now  that  he  is 
beginning  to  grow  ambitious  ?" 

"  S. — General  Grant  is  combative.  We 
made  the  mistake  of  not  cultivating  him.  He 
is  destined  to  play  an  important  part  in  the 
future  history  of  this  country." 

I  saw  much  of  Stephens  during  his  last 
years  in  Congress.  He  often  appealed  to  me, 
in  tones  that  were  not  easy  to  resist,  to  come 
to  his  rooms  in  the  National  Hotel  on  Satur 
day  and  remain  until  Sunday  evening.  This, 
often  inconvenient  as  it  was,  I  did  about  once 
a  month.  On  Saturday  night  at  the  coming 
in  of  other  guests  we  had  whist,  of  which  he 
was  more  fond  than  any  person  I  ever  knew. 
He  and  I  were  never  partners,  and  had  not 
been  in  twenty  years.  I  always  was  surprised 
at  the  enjoyment  in  the  game  by  one  who 


1 82  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OP 

could  become  so  angrily  excited  by  a  misplay 
of  his  partner.  Many  years  ago,  at  one  of 
these  on  my  part,  his  language  was  so  offen 
sive  that,  throwing  down  my  hand,  among 
other  things  I  declared  that  I  would  never 
again  be  his  partner  in  the  game. 

At  ten  o'clock,  after  the  departure  of  the 
other  guests,  he  and  I  withdrew  into  his  bed 
room,  where,  after  being  undressed  and  lifted 
into  bed  by  Aleck,  a  negro  who  had  taken  the 
place  left  by  Harry's  death,  his  pipe  was 
lighted,  and  generally  I  read  aloud  to  him 
until  he  fell  asleep. 

Sundays  he  had  eight  or  teu  guests  to  meet 
me  to  dinner  in  his  front  room.  To  my  re 
monstrances  against  the  needless  expenditure, 
which  he  could  not  afford  to  undergo,  he 
would  answer  about  thus:  "Ah,  well!  we 
can  not  be  together  much  longer."  L,ater  in 
the  afternoon  I  left  to  return  home.  It  hap 
pened  very  often  1hat  immediately  after  my 
departure,  he  wrote  to  me,  sometimes  a  long 
letter,  telling  me  of  his  gratification  at  my 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON      183 

visit  and  the  sadness  of  bidding  me  good-bye. 

Several  times  he  had  long,  dangerous  spells 
of  sickness,  and  not  unfrequently  suspected 
that  he  was  near  his  end.  During  these  sea 
sons  I  went,  at  his  pathetic  request,  to  Wash 
ington  at  night,  returning  in  time  for  my  school 
next  morning.  Times  not  to  be  counted  have 
I  heard  him  crying,  with  the  feeling  and  voice 
of  a  child,  at  being  left  alone  in  the  world, 
without  parents,  brothers,  or  sisters;  indeed, 
of  all  persons  whom  I  have  ever  known,  his 
natural  affections  seemed  to  me  the  most  pas 
sionate. 

There  are  many  things  that  I  could  tell  of 
how  he  was  beset  and,  as  it  were,  robbed,  dur 
ing  those  years  in  Washington,  by  beggars, 
from  the  well-dressed  to  the  squalid — beggars 
of  all  sorts,  kinds,  sexes,  and  conditions.  From 
these  he  was  absolutely  without  power  to  tear 
himself  away,  and  so  his  pockets,  in  a  brief 
while,  often  were  emptied  to  a  few  dollars  or 
cents,  which,  as  he  used  to  saj^,  he  would  keep 
for  seed. 


184  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OP 

At  his  Sunday  dinners,  besides  several  of  the 
Georgia  members,  I  sometimes  met  distin 
guished  officials — Davis,  of  the  Supreme  Court ; 
General  Ewing,  Senators  Beck  and  Blackburn, 
and  others.  He  was  a  good  host,  learning 
easily  how  to  accommodate  himself  to  every 
individual. 

On  my  arrival  one  Saturday  morning  he  was 
preparing  to  take  a  party  of  several  Georgians 
for  a  call  upon  President  Grant.  He  and  the 
rest  persuaded  me  to  go  along  with  them. 
In  a  few  minutes  after  being  shown  to  a  room, 
wherein  was  a  long  table,  the  President  entered, 
and  after  introductions,  sat  down  at  the  head 
of  the  table  and  spoke  not  a  word.  His  face 
seemed  somewhat  flushed,  his  eyes  dull,  and 
his  linen  collar  rather  drooping.  Stephens 
addressed  several  observations,  which,  after 
lifting  his  eyes  from  their  recumbent  position, 
Grant  answered  briefly,  and  let  down  his  eyes 
again.  The  only  remark  of  Stephens  which 
seemed  to  interest  him,  and  that  only  slightly, 
was  an  allusion  made  by  the  former  to  a  very 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON      185 

severe  criticism  upon  him  that  had  appeared 
that  morning  in  the  New  York  Sun.  Grant, 
bringing  his  eyes  to  a  level,  answered  in  about 
these  words  :  ' '  No ;  I  never  read  anything  in 
that  paper.  The  proprietor,  shortly  after  my 
coming  into  office,  applied  to  me  for  an  office. 
I  didn't  give  it  to  him  because  I  didn't  think 
he  was  fit  for  it.  Ever  since  then  his  paper 
has  been  abusing  me;  but  I  never  open  its 
pages." 

Stephens  did  not  take  very  well  my  rather 
teasing  him  for  the  President's  silence  and 
apparent  indifference  to  all  his  callers.  With 
slight  petulance  he  answered:  "  Grant  is  just 
as  I've  frequently  told  people — he  never  talks 
unless  he  has  something  to  say! ' ' 

I  could  not  but  smile  at  a  reply  that  I 
thought  I  could  make  with  some  aptness,  but 
I  said  no  more  because  it  was  evident  that  he 
felt  rather  disappointed. 

He  survived  his  inauguration  as  Governor 
but  a  few  weeks.  It  seemed  fit  that  his  last 
official  act  was  signing  the  pardon  of  a  con- 


1 86  AUTOBIOGRAPHY   OF 

vict.  The  remnants  of  the  hundreds  of  thou 
sands  gotten  by  his  work  was  about  enough 
for  the  payment  to  L,inton's  estate  of  the  sum 
advanced  to  start  his  journal  in  the  Greeley 
campaign . 

I  thought  it  as  well  to  record  some  of  the 
parts  of  the  many  conversations  we  had 
together  during  the  war,  a  very  small  portion 
of  which  I  wrote  down  at  the  time  of  their 
occurrence.  During  that  whole  period  he 
suffered  often  with  much  intensity  from  appre 
hensions  of  results  of  a  revolution  unwisely 
brought  on  and  conducted.  In  time  he  lost 
almost  all  confidence  in  President  Davis,  re 
garding  him  as  narrow,  shortsighted,  willful, 
arrogant,  and  resentful,  long  before  it  came, 
doomed  to  entire  failure.  Very  many  things 
he  said  to  me  privately  on  several  matters  in 
his  public  policy,  and  other  things  which  I 
did  not  record  then  and  which  I  will  not 
record  now. 

After  the  return  from  Fortress  Monroe,  it 
behooving  him  to  get  some  sort  of  income  for 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON       187 

the  maintenance  of  his  very  expensive  family, 
not  being  able  to  follow  the  circuit  as  before, 
he  accepted  an  ofTer  from  an  agent  of  the 
United  States  Publishing  Company,  of  Phila 
delphia,  to  write  a  history,  which  he  styled 
"A  History  of  the  War  Between  the  States." 
Its  success  as  a  selling  book  was  great,  bring 
ing  him  perhaps,  if  any,  only  a  little  less  than 
a  hundred  thousand  dollars.  This  money, 
like  the  first  that  came  and  continued  to  come 
from  other  sources,  went  in  the  way  of  keep 
ing  to  the  last  as  from  the  first,  in  uncounted 
bestowment  of  charities,  and  keeping  a  house 
ever  open  at  all  hours,  day  and  night,  to  visit 
ors  of  every  degree,  from  near  and  from  afar, 
known  and  unknown,  heard  of  and  unheard 
of.  It  was  really  pathetic  to  his  nearest  people 
and  friends,  even  a  matter  of  some  resentment 
now.  As  some  expressed  it,  he  was  eaten  up 
by  appeals  for  help  which,  although  in  far  the 
greatest  cases  were  little  meritorious,  he  could 
no  more  turn  away  from  than  a  mother  could 
endure  without  feeling  the  moanings  of  her 
sick  child. 


1 88  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 

His  household  continued  to  the  last  as  be 
fore.  His  farm  negroes  rented  at  small  cost 
the  land,  and  his  man-servant,  Harry,  and  his 
family  attended  to  affairs  at  the  mansion.  The 
three  persons  most  dear  to  him  were  his  bro 
ther  lyinton,  his  nephew  William  Stephens 
(son  of  his  brother  John),  and  Harry.  The 
deaths  of  all  of  those,  particularly  L,inton,  the 
pride  of  his  life,  broke  his  heart.  On  a  visit 
I  paid  a  year  or  so  afterwards,  he  was  in  great 
prostration  of  spirit.  Among  many  other 
things,  I  remember  his  saying,  while  speaking 
of  his  death,  about  thus  :  "  If  I  could  have 
it  as  I  wish,  I  would  prefer  being  carried  alone 
to  the  grave  by  the  negroes  with  torches  and 
be  buried  at  night."  Yet  the  necessity  of 
bracing  himself  against  utter  despondency,  and 
what  was  as  urgent,  that  of  continuing  his 
hospitalities  and  charities,  forced  him  to  re- 
enter  politics,  of  his  subsequent  career  in 
which  it  is  not  needful  to  speak.  He  secured 
the  nomination  for  Governor  with  a  satisfac 
tion  that  he  did  not  express  to  others — indeed 


COL.  RICHARD  MALCOLM  JOHNSTON       189 

Endeavoring,  I  suspected,  to  keep  it  out  of  his 
own  consicousness.  He  asked  me  to  come  to 
Washington  on  the  day  of  his  departure,  and 
be  the  last  to  take  leave  of  him.  After  shak 
ing  hands  with  all,  among  whom  I  am  sure 
there  were  at  least  twenty  of  the  hotel  ser 
vants,  every  one  of  whom  got  a  parting  gift, 
we  entered  a  carriage,  and  were  driven  over 
several  streets,  his  face  indicating  profoundest 
sadness  as  he  looked,  knowing  it  was  for  the 
last  time,  upon  buildings  very  familiar  to  him. 
As  we  passed  one  of  these,  on  my  asking  what 
it  was,  he  answered,  "That  is  the  jail  !  Do 
you  know  that  it  makes  me  sick  at  heart  to 
look  at  a  jail  ?  The  misery  endured  there  from 
false  charges,  neglect,  from  despotic  treatment 
and  myriad  forms  of  wrong  and  outrage,  make 
me  sick  in  my  heart  to  think  of. ' '  Among 
other  things  he  said  :  "I  ought  not  to  have 
accepted  this  nomination.  I  tell  you  I'm 
worn  out.  I  sometimes  feel  like  I  wish,  and 
that  I  ought  to  pray,  that  Gartrell  [General 
Lucius  Gartrell ,  his  opponent]  would  beat  me. ' ' 


1 90  AUTOBIOGRAPHY . 

In  this  there  was  no  doubt  in  his  mind  that 
he  deluded  himself.  His  defeat  would  have 
mortified  him  more  than  anything  that  ever 
occurred  to  his  personal  history. 

Regarding  it  from  every  point  of  view,  the 
being  of  Alexander  Stephens  seemed  to  me  the 
most  unique  of  all  with  which  I  have  been 
acquainted.  Extremes  were  more  distant  from 
each  other,  with  many  various  means  between. 
The  wise  man  that  he  became  kept  within 
him  very  much  of  the  little  child.  His  native 
irascibility  showed  itself  in  middle  age  and  old 
as  in  childhood  and  youth.  An  offense,  or 
what  he  took  to  be  such,  roused  instant  resent 
ment  with  desire  to  fight.  He  challenged  to 
the  duel  consecutively  Herschel  (afterwards 
Governor)  Johnston  and  Benjamin  (after 
wards  United  States  Senator)  Hill.  His 
pride,  perhaps  rather  I  should  say  his  vanity, 
was  as  exquisitely  sensitive  to  slight,  real  or 
apparent,  as  his  own  suffering  body  was  to 
a  new,  sudden  pain.  Yet  of  all  men  he  was 
the  most  ready  to  forgive  an  enemy. 


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